


Styria by Night

by Trahern



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-04-29 07:05:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5119499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trahern/pseuds/Trahern
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Silas University, in the World of Darkness. Starts squarely in the middle of Carmilla season one, and assumes Gehenna has yet to occur. (Other Vampire: the Masquerade details also differ from canon, according to the world-building of the long-defunct Sanctum Aeternum roleplaying board.)</p><p>My usual NaNoWriMo compatriot is too busy job-hunting to write even his usual stuff, let alone fifty thousand words in thirty days; and it's about time I gave AO3 some proper attention (instead of never getting around to transposing my kigo fics from ffnet). Didn't even get halfway, as it turns out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. En Route

_I shall begin this electronic missive by voicing my displeasure at being sent back to the old world mere years after returning to my home in the new one._

_I assume that Mendosa may already have mentioned how I voiced my discontent to his face (which I did take pleasure in doing), but I suspect that mentioning it in this communication will make my complaint official. I make no secret of my disdain for the prince of New York - or should I say, Manhattan - and if I'm completely honest, I have more respect for the locals that fought on the streets than the Ventrue administrators who placed one of their own in charge after all was said and done. Still, I prefer the company of antagonistic Camarilla to the clueless or hypocritical Sabbat. That said, I will not allow Mendosa the satisfaction of perishing while on this assignment, regardless of the inconveniences threatened by his masters should I refuse it. Yes, I am aware that making an enemy of the Camarilla as a whole would be more problematic than adding to the frustrations of individual princes. As long as you recognise that I am not a member of the Sabbat, I will meet whatever you choose to throw at me with the vigour typical of any true survivor._

_That said, after viewing the material supplied by the Nosferatu, I am interested enough to allow Tomas the "victory" of removing me from his city after his previous and numerous failed attempts. You have precious few Lasombra available to investigate others apparently of our clan, and I assume the likes of Montano or Galeazzo are far too busy for a mere breach of the Masquerade; no doubt it is better to send a Keeper of no political significance to your ongoing sectarian nonsense. As I have told Mendosa, I will have none of it, save to reduce any Tzimisce I come across to ash whenever the opportunity presents itself. I suppose the Camarilla considers that my only good deed, compared to the trouble in Lisbon, Paris and London at, and following, the turn this century... and I assume that Canis Nobile confirmed that I did not in fact steal the sword of Charlemagne, since I have heard nothing more about it. If Paris prefers spouting baseless accusations to justify a blood hunt over actually investigating, as Magnus and I did once he tracked me down, I would take greater issue with Villon and his minions than a wayward Lasombra autarkis._

_On the subject of investigation: aside from attempting to hasten my Final Death, I have also been tapped for this task because you desire a pair of eyes at Silas that are not Tremere. The opportunity to humiliate them with a breach of the Masquerade on their doorstep would be secondary to ferreting out any actual secrets you can use against them. If that was your intention, I should inform you that I have not forgotten why they are called Usurpers, nor that you Patricians facilitated their survival despite their crimes. Should I learn anything about the Tremere in Silas, I see no reason to share that information with you. In the past, I would have gladly filled my role in furthering the Cainite jyhad that is part of our curse, delivering Final Death against any I considered an enemy. I did not avoid slaughtering New York's Camarilla hunters because I was trying to get on Mendosa's good side. The fate of the Ravnos has proven that, whatever emnity is involved, Final Death is best avoided... save for those whose founders have already perished._

_Do not waste time repeating the Camarilla company line to me. Regardless of my opinion of you Inner Council types, you are not fools. You know what happened and why. You know the threat is real._

_In case this device is not already relaying my location, I have reached Europe and will contact you again as I approach my final destination._

* * *

Vale sent the message to one of the two numbers that had come with the smartphone, then turned the device off. Perhaps its GPS was still working regardless, but that mattered little compared to knowingly carrying around a device designed to spy on him. Perhaps it had been altered so that he would only think he had turned it off; he did not have the technical knowhow to be sure. Yes, he had learned more about how computers worked since settling in New York, but this was already next generation technology as far as the solitary Lasombra was concerned. The last time he had interacted with a touchscreen, it had been on an ordinary television screen - the old boxy kind, not the flatscreens of today - and it had seemed little more than a novelty. Now, he held in his hand a device that was nothing _but_ screen on one side, and the only keyboard was the one that popped up whenever he tapped the message box.

The phone had been delivered to him by a Nosferatu, not a Ventrue; Vale was fairly sure that it had not been delivered _through_ the Nosferatu. Despite their appearance, he would rather develop contacts with the Sewer Rats than the Blue Bloods... or Patricians, as they had been called in centuries past. He liked to give the impression that he was older than the century he had under his belt. If someone knew too little or too much of him, it would raise troubling questions either way, and troubling his fellow Cainites was one of his reasons for unliving, these nights. Another reason to merely subdue all attackers: one cannot vex a pile of ash.

The Tzimisce were exempt, of course. Fuck the Fiends. In whatever orifices they might have. With a barbaque fork.

Tangents. His mind kept going off on tangents. The city of light was a fitting name for the place of his revelation, but before that, he had performed one of the darkest deeds of his unlife here. Granted, it was the result of a loss of control, provoked by another, who became both victim and tormenter after the act... would he have reached his revelation without it? Regardless, when he wasn't busy doing something, it was easy to become distracted, even this long after the voice in his head had finally been subsumed.

Vale considered the phone in his hand. As the Nosferatu explained its functions, she had mentioned that it contained more technology than it took to send men to the moon. Men did not go to the moon anymore. Once they had set foot upon it for the very first time, the space race was over. Science was the only reason to go back, and that reason soon proved lacking. Mars was the new target, but united nations seemed to lack the impetus of opposing nations locked in a cold war.

Tangents.

Setting the phone on the desk, the Lasombra glanced about the unlit Parisian hotel room with the Night Sight that was particular to his clan, grounding himself in the present before wasting more time in the past. The locals would be upset at his return, but he was now capable of passing through unnoticed. He would spend the day here, feed when evening fell, and continue on his way. For the moment, the Lasombra considered the writing stationary before him. There was another who would be interested in his current circumstances.

* * *

_Pisha,_

_I have been all but commanded to investigate Silas University in Styria, Austria. Their English website boasts the most comprehensive occult research program in the world, but seems perfectly normal otherwise. Despite my decades of research across much of Europe, I have never heard of the place, and no one I have spoken to is even aware of it. At first I suspected that the Tremere had performed some sort of obfuscation ritual, but the internet-inclined among the Nosferatu have been poking about the place online for a while._

_A journalism student has recently been uploading videos to the Silas ethernet - which I gather is a local network rather than a worldwide one - concerning her missing roommate, among others. In the process, she seems to have accumulated video evidence of her new vampire roommate._

_The Camarilla are predictably concerned. Blood in the fridge, nocturnal behaviour, preternatural strength, and the ability to set an offensive musical record on fire without even conjuring a handful of the stuff and throwing it. There is some contradictory behaviour, such as a lack of rotschreck in regard to sunlight or fire, and the consumption of chocolate foodstuffs... though I have learned that, on very rare occasions, a Cainite can retain the ability enjoy mortal food and keep it down for a whole evening. After my experiences with the Kuei-Jin, I am fascinated by these contradictions and willing to investigate for my own reasons; the latest of which is the vampire roommate's capability for Tenebrous Form._

_I presume the Ventrue are more interested in digging up some fresh dirt on the Tremere than enforcing the Masquerade, and they sent me so that if the effort leads to my permanent demise, they still accomplish something. I intend to disappoint them on both counts, but given the technology of today, ethernet videos can become internet videos, which can become "viral" videos. We share an interest in maintaining the Camarilla's Masquerade as well as the occult. I would appreciate any information you can share._

_I know my messenger is unconventional even among such supernatural creatures ourselves, but it is efficient. It will remain in your presence without betraying its own, until you have written your response. When you are alone, place it on a table or other surface and speak aloud that it is your response to me. When it is consequently enveloped in darkness (pun intended) and disappears, be assured that it will be in my hands in due course._

_I hope your own work is proving fruitful._

_Vale._

* * *

"Decius," the Lasombra spoke as he folded the letter and slid it into an envelope.

In response, a darker shadow above the hotel room's door began to roil, then slid across the ceiling and down the wall against which the desk was placed. Once it was level with Vale's face, it coiled around itself, swirling slowly, akin to a rotating hypnotic image. Its master stared into it, picturing the subject of conversation. "You remember the Nagaraja named Pisha."

A voice no more substantial than a breeze whispered, _"The flesheater."_

"Yes," the Lasombra confirmed, holding his letter before the swirling shadow. "This is my message to her. Take it. Find her through the Abyss. Deliver it to her when she is alone. Remain in her presence, hidden, until she has prepared her response. When she tells you that it is ready, take it and bring it to me."

Instead of taking the envelope, another whisper. _"Alone..."_

Vale raised an eyebrow at the entity's confusion. "Clarify."

_"She is not alone."_

It took only a moment to guess that it meant Pisha had not been alone during their meetings. Vale had rarely bothered with vocal conversation with previous Abyssal entities that he had drawn into his service, usually relying on a kind of telepathy unique to the fragmented intelligences that drifted through the shadow realm. Experience had taught him that a combination of mental and vocal communication worked best once t he had  drawn them out of the Abyss and into his service. This one was intelligent and diligent enough for Vale's liking, but for some reason it had little concept of the passage of time. "Define," he commanded.

_"Empty."_

"Of?"

_"Blood."_

Of course. The Nagaraja were necromancers. "Dead. Deceased. A ghost."

_"Yes."_

"How many?"

_"One."_

"Always the same one?"

_"Yes."_

"Was it aware of you during our meetings?"

The spiralling pattern slowed. _"Perhaps,"_ it decided.

Vale smiled slightly. "It likely assists her, as you assist me. If it is just the two of them, you may show yourself to deliver my message, and retrieve hers. When you find her, approach from a distance; if the ghost becomes aware of you, it will warn her. When you return to me, tell me whether or not it does so. But remember, this is secondary to delivering my message to her, and her response to me."

_"Understood."_

The Lasombra held the envelope up once again, and this time the swirling darkness reached out from the wall like a horizontal whirpool and swallowed the message. The shape suddenly slammed flat against the wall again, and Vale could almost see it protruding into the shadow realm of the Abyss before it left his sight completely, leaving only the ordinary absence of light draped across the wall.

Morning approached Paris. If Pisha was still somewhere in the Americas, she would probably receive his missive before the dawn reached her. Here and now, Vale could feel the sunrise tugging at his senses, threatening the lethargy that always followed. He stood, picked up the smartphone and pocketed it before moving into the bathroom. The mirror over the sink refused to acknowledge his existence as he passed it and stepped into the bathtub.

He stared into the open plughole as he concentrated. As he did, veins of utter darkness began to grow from the soles of his boots, climbing ever upward over his clothes, the fabric seemingly falling away to reveal nothing but more darkness underneath. The dark veins reached Vale's neck and continued across his face unabated, flesh cracking and crumbling, the darkness welling up from behind his eyes until nothing human was left.

Vale's Tenebrous Form collapsed and slithered down the plughole, stretching string-like along the pipes like a tapeworm settling in copper intestines to sleep the day away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vale is my original character when I was roleplaying Vampire: the Masquerade. As a photographer obsessed with the contrast of light and shadow, a Lasombra was a natural fit.
> 
> Canis Nobile (or Magnus) is an original character of Christopher Wright, author of "Pay Me, Bug!" and the ongoing prose comic "Curveball", both of which can be found at eviscerati.org.
> 
> Pisha is a character from Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines. In my version of the story, she is not only a Nagaraja scholar and occultist, but a member of the Black Hand... which is NOT secretely working for the antediluvians, as Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand implies.
> 
> While on the subject of how the Sanctum rolled: the Lasombra and Tzimisce antediluvians are definitely Finally Dead, Vicissitude is not a virus, the technocracy is not a thing because sci-fi undercuts what is supposed to be horror, and "spirit nukes" are not what delivered the deathblow to the Ravnos antediluvian.


	2. Of Vampires And Bondage

The first night of trying to sleep with an angry vampire in the room was the most difficult, despite said vampire being trussed up to a chair, with a garlic necklace for good measure. Laura's eyes sprang open with every shift of leather, creak of the chair or frustrated sigh. It wasn't until Laura decided that Carmilla was making noise just to keep her awake that she was finally able ignore her enough to fall asleep. Carmilla spent the remaining hours before dawn blaming her inability to escape on the half-bottle of champagne she had drunk just so her mind would be fuzzy enough to seduce Laura without any serious prodding from her conscience.

The following afternoon proved that it wasn't just the champagne. Despite her strength, Carmilla couldn't get the necessary leverage to bust free, thanks to the smart ginger's surprising capability with ropes and knots. The ropes wrapped around her torso made it impossible to change the angle of the chair's backrest, which might have given her some wiggle room; but that was secondary to her wrists and ankles being so efficiently tied and secured to three of the chair's five legs. The study chair itself was also frustratingly solid in construction. She could only glare as she was forced to watched Laura edit together her latest video, refusing to break her silent treatment even when the child typed '10 cloves of garlic' instead of '10 bulbs of garlic' for a stupid segueway instead of showing the actual fight. Yes, the ending was humiliating, but cracking Xena's eye and Will's shoulder would be worth it.

At least Laura didn't delete the raw footage from the camera.

And on the second day, she offered to wipe off Carmilla's increasingly smudged lipstick. On the condition that she not bite her fingers off, yes, but not an offer one would typically extend to an assumed fiend of hell. Still pissed at being tied up and starved, though, so she continued the quiet glaring.

The vampire was woken on the third day by a tissue being dragged across her lips. The hand bearing the tissue jerked back when her eyes opened, and she mumbled a drowsy, "Seriously?" before remembering she was supposed to be giving Laura the silent treatment.

The teenager stared for a moment, then nervously reached back over and finished the job. The look Carmilla gave her when she was finished bore no sign of gratitude, but at least it was more stare than glare. Depositing the tissue in the bin, Laura turned to her desk and set the camera recording. "Good afternoon, viewers, and welcome to day three of Operation Stupid Obstinate Vampire Won't Talk..."

Carmilla frowned and looked away, forced to listen as her roommate admitted that she had no idea how long a vampire could go without blood, but assumed that her continued silence was proof that she was guilty of _something_ involving the missing girls and accidental death of Sarah Jane. Her mother wouldn't be happy about that, and was glad she had been too busy being ambushed by toddlers to have been involved. Of course, it was probably only a matter of time before her current predicament caught up with her... she seethed internally as the journalism student beside her prattled on.

Laura had stopped posting videos the night of Carmilla's capture, but it wasn't until the vampire's phone started complaining of a weak battery that she got another idea. By day three, Carmilla's absence had been noted by study buddies and the like, and while disappearing was starting to sound like the fashionable thing for girls to do at Silas this year, it might be better to keep any enquiring minds from worrying too much.

"What are you doing?" Carmilla growled as she observed Laura doing more than just plugging the recharge cable into her phone.

"I'm... going on your twitter account to tell people you've gone to... Iceland."

The vampire scoffed.

"Or Vegas," Laura amended as she continued tapping at the phone.

"Oh, please. Paris or New York, at least."

"You mean where people might know you, and know you're not really there? Yeah, right."

Carmilla had not been thinking along those lines, though if Mattie grew suspicious... no, she would never live it down if her sister found her in these circumstances. "Why would _I_ go to Vegas?"

"Probably to lose all the money you've stolen," Laura grumped, setting the phone down and returning to her computer. "But y'know what? Fine. Iceland it is."

And with that, Carmilla was forced to watch as the teenager poorly photoshopped an image of Carmilla into an Icelandic hot spring.

* * *

Pisha had been as unaware of Silas University as everyone else, and had no intention of going anywhere near it... but looked forward to hearing all about it while Vale was there. The Black Hand would certainly be interested in whatever was really going on there.

Vale had little time to contemplate this as he was evading the Tremere of the Paris chantry.

The Lasombra had diablerized three of his fellow Cainites in the course of his unlife, draining soul as well as blood, considered by the Camarilla to be one of the most vile acts one Cainite can inflict upon another. The first had been in a starved frenzy following hours of torture; in the throes of the Beast, Vale had simply kept feeding even after his torturer's blood was gone. It allowed his escape from Madrid, one of the strongest bastions of the Sabbat. After being sired by a Lasombra independent of the Sabbat, joining the sect was the best way to expand his ability and education with Obtenebration, the discipline that had become his obsession.

The second was perhaps the most damning, because it had been by choice. An archbishop of the Sabbat, a Lasombra elder, was at his mercy, and Vale chose to diablerize him for the power he would gain. As a Cainite of the eighth generation, his talent for Obtenebration had limits imposed by how far removed he was from Caine. Consuming the elder's soul brought him a step closer to Caine, making him capable of so much more, including entering the Abyss itself. After decades of studying Abyssal Occultism, it was a dream come true.

The third was a Parisian Tremere, hence all the fuss. Vale had been incapacitated and delivered to the Tremere in question. Intending to force the Lasombra into his service, he attempted to persuade Vale to sign a blood contract; when Vale refused, the Tremere resorted to Domination. Unfortunately, after the extensive mind-fuckery Vale's sire had put him through, unsuccessful attempts to Dominate him tended to result in frenzy... and since becoming seventh generation, there were far fewer Cainites capable of pulling it off. This time, however, the victim's soul did not go down so easily. Its influence remained for years, even after it could no longer remain a voice in Vale's head.

Vale had never known how long he had been in torpor before the Tremere had revived him, but it had certainly been long enough to take some of the Lasombra's blood, his _vitae_ , which they could preserve in their magical vials and perform various thaumaturgic rituals. The clan of undead warlocks kept the full extent of their abilities as secret as possible, but it was not hard to guess that they had some way to warm them when he was back in town and guide them to his precise location. The more unpleasant option was that they had done something to him, left some magical mark or inplanted something he had been unable to discover, which was leading them right to him.

It took a whole night of evasion before the Lasombra considered the possibility of a tracking method as mundane as the smartphone in his pocket.

Descending into the catacombs beneath Paris as the sun rose, he hid the phone in one alcove before wrapping himself in shadow and settling into the alcove opposite. It would be difficult to remain conscious during the sunlit hours but he had done it before, and it was an absolute necessity when dealing with any of the Camarilla clans. They loved their ghouls, and had made good use of them during the six days collectively referred to as the Battle of New York. Building fires, burst gas mains and even a sabotaged Sabbat-owned tanker truck full of acid, all during the daytime; by the time the Camarilla ghouls were done, a fifth of the Sabbat force in the city had been destroyed on the first day.

Sure enough, the Tremere ghouls came, armed with flaming torches and sawn-off double-barrel shotguns that were probably loaded with incendiary ammunition. It had taken Vale's leg off at the knee the last time he was in town, and since ghouls (probably) couldn't throw fireballs... best to assume the worst.

There were three of them. The first two came into view as each took an alcove to cover. The third stepped between them to cover the tunnel ahead. The Cainite gradually tensed as he observed them, drawing shadowy tentacles from the surrounding darkness, granting them a solidity contrary to nature as he waited for them to show more interest in one side or the other.

The ghoul in the phone alcove paused, then turned to face Vale, revealing the headset he was wearing. Of course. The Tremere would not trust mere mortal tools with whatever was being used to locate the Lasombra. Which meant...

Vale quickly twisted the Arms of the Abyss from tentacles into large flat surfaces. As soon as the lead ghoul had stepped into the tunnel between the alcoves, a wall of darkness slammed into them from the direction they had come, only to be struck back by another at the opposite end. Now divested of their flame and firearms, the mortal trio collapsed onto the third Arm which head spread across the floor while they were being bounced about, slamming them into the crumbling brickwork of the ceiling. Withdrawing into tentacles once more, each wrapped themselves around the nearest ghoul from elbow to knee, pinning their arms to their sides, and suspending them upside-down in the air.

Dispelling the Shadowplay that had kept Vale hidden from view, the Lasombra stepped forward and plucked the headset from the lead ghoul before inspecting it. There was no camera that he could see, just an earpiece and microphone. He donned the paraphanalia himself and listened in silence for a long moment before drawing a breath.

"Inadequate. Insulting."

There was no response.

"You are this one's regnant, I assume," Vale continued, before reaching forward and neatly snapping the lead ghoul's neck. Something between a grunt and a gasp finally issued from the earpiece, confirming the Lasombra's theory. Tremere had a ritual, a version of a mortal location spell powered by Cainite _vitae_ instead of the magic that the warlocks used to draw from when they were still mortal members of the Order of Hermes. It gave the user an indication of direction and proximity. The only way a Tremere could use the ritual remotely is if the ghoul on the field was connected to him by more than the usual bloodbond. Vale was aware of another ritual that allowed a regnant to be aware of the ghoul's physical condition. Someone in the clan most have worked out a variation that allowed the remote scrying demonstrated here.

The Lasombra was aware of these facts because there was one boon that came with the lingering soul of a Tremere.

"Usurper," he growled as he stepped toward the next ghoul, "You will bring me what is mine. _All_ of it."

_*snap*_

"If you do not, only the Man in Dark Robes himself can stop me from ripping through your wards and tearing your chantry down, and all of you with it."

_*snap*_

"And call me crazy if you wish, but I suspect he is no longer in town," the Lasombra finished wickedly before dismissing the Arms, allowing the bodies to fall to the floor. The headgear followed, to be crushed under Vale's boot as he moved to retrieve his phone before leaving the scene in the opposite direction from which the ghouls had come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not writing a thing on Monday I can excuse, because, well, Monday. But by now I'm starting to worry that I can't write worth a damn unless I'm drunk... hm, perhaps I should test that hypothesis. Vigorously.


	3. Avoidance

By day six, Carmilla was starting to worry that she would still be tied to the chair when her period started.

She had dressed to kill - metaphorically, not literally - and that meant no underwear. To see Laura's face when she realised... and instead, _this_ happened. In all her years, the vampire had never gone without blood before a full moon; she idly wondered whether or not her body would retain blood under her current circumstances. Not that she was going to say anything about it to the creampuff, or whoever else was guarding her at the time. Who _was_ guarding her right now? Carmilla twisted her neck enough to look behind her, and saw the ginger scientist sitting on the edge of Laura's bed, watching her, wooden stake in hand.

"Woah," LaFontaine said as their eyes searched her face, "How you doing? You're starting to look a little... ashen."

Carmilla faced forward again. "'That would be the 'starve me until I confess' part of your childish plan," she replied with as much sarcasm as she could muster. Blood was the only thing that kept her going during the daylight hours, and home refridgerators had only been around for about a century. She had gotten used to the convenience; the weakness she was feeling now was typical of her younger days.

"What if we fed you? Would you talk then?"

"Would you untie me?"

"Well, no," LaFontaine admitted.

"Then what, spoon-feed me like an infant? I'd rather starve."

"Why? What information is worth starving to death for? Would you actually die if-"

"If I'm not going to talk about it, I'm sure as hell not going to give you a crash course in vampire biology."

Carmilla could almost feel the disappointment that no doubt decorated the redhead's face, but at least it shut them up and allowed her to try and sleep. It was getting more difficult as her hunger grew, but she figured that the more rest she got, the longer she could maintain a semblance of consciousness before the inevitable torpor. Not only might it answer the crimson horror that was bearing down on her, but it meant more time with Laura. These sleepy hours were usually spent trying to figure the girl out.

There was also the question as to why the girl still mattered to her in the first place. The vampire had already identified the start of it: Laura had sniped at her well enough to get her hackles up and tear into Lois Lane in response. Despite which, the teenager had insisted that even Carmilla deserved better. Foolishly naive, utterly appropriate for a child, yet her conviction was... impressive. And so stubborn, it would get her killed, if the dreams were any indication. In a moment of weakness, the vampire had fetched the charm, only for Laura to _not_ wear it. When, exactly, had she decided Carmilla was a vampire? How much 'video evidence' had it taken for her to even consider the possibility?

Why hadn't she been _horrified_?

Carmilla being a vampire hadn't seemed as important as the missing girls, beyond suggesting a motive. Is that where Laura thought she was getting the blood from? How much had the girl actually found out? Perhaps she _should_ watch those stupid videos... assuming she gets the chance. Starving would be preferable to the bloody coffin.

* * *

The Tremere were playing it quiet, trying not to attract the attention of the Toreador that ruled every noteworthy city in France. The Ventrue were all but absent, leaving the Brujah and Nosferatu clans - and the occasional Malkavian - to ride the coattails of the Toreador. The more time Vale spent underneath Paris, the more he wondered where the Nosferatu were. The Sewer Rats were reviled far more in the old world than the new, no more so than by the Degenerates. It probably said something that Cainite society as a whole considered remaining the most human to be degenerate, but that did not make the Toreador any less dangerous, as some preferred to believe. The Tremere were not the type to fool themselves, and they were trying to deal with the unwelcome Lasombra in-house.

The Nosferatu had a particular talent for hiding, born from the varied grotesqueries of their appearance. Vale didn't care, knowing their other shared trait: the discovery and selective sharing of information, for an appropriate price. Even if the Sabbat had Nosferatu _antitribu_ among their ranks, sect loyalties did not stop them from talking to each other. Right now, Vale wanted to know where the Tremere chantry in Paris was located... but after three nights of searching the catacombs, sewers and metro tunnels, not one Sewer Rat had revealed itself. At the very least, the Lasombra would have expected one to pop up just to tell him to remove himself from their domain, by now.

Either they were staying out of the way - of him or the Tremere, Vale could not guess - or their population had dwindled since he was last here. He preferred the theory of relocation to destruction, but considered it too optimistic. Regardless, the undead warlocks were not cooperating. Remaining out of sight from the mortals should have been an invitation to engage him with all the thaumaturgy at their disposal, but they were waiting him out.

Frustrating.

Vale headed as far east as he could before climbing to street level. The last two arrondissements were there, with a heavy population comprised of the working class and several flavours of migrants. If there were any Sabbat in Paris, they would likely be on this side of the city, but the Lasrombra was only interested in feeding. He had one last recourse left to him if he wished to finish his business here, and he wanted to top up the tank before getting into a probably hostile situation.

As he wandered the narrow streets, he felt the smartphone buzz in his pocket. Fishing it out, he entered the password to unlock the device and discovered a message from the Nosferatu who has keeping him informed on the Silas situation. The first bit of news was that there had been no new videos since the students that captured Carmilla had chosen to starve her for information. _I bet that went well,_ the Lasombra thought. _She probably frenzied, broke free and went on a feeding spree._ The second bit of news made him pause: the lack of new material had apparently bored one of Laura's viewers to the point that they had started uploading her videos to youtube. The Nosferatu had blocked them, citing copyright issues, but that a larger effort was underway to handle the problem. There were no details on what said effort entailed.

As Vale tapped out his acknowledgement of this latest news, a large man in rough clothes approached him and spoke. "Hmm?" he answered without looking up, until the man placed a heavy hand on his shoulder and spoke again. His other hand held a knife, pointed at the Lasombra's stomach.

"Ah, je vois," he said, locking and pocketing the phone before adding with a sharp grin, "Vous ferez bien."

As he snatched the hand with the knife and squeezed until fingers started popping, his other hand grabbed the man by the hair, pulling his head aside enough to expose his neck enough to bite down on. The pain and fear kept the blood pumping until the pleasure of the Kiss took over, with little change in effect.

The man was dead by the time Vale stopped, but he had not drained him completely. Licking the twin punctures until they closed, he threw the corpse down so that the skull cracked against the street. Fishing the knife from broken fingers, he stabbed where he had just fed from before rolling the body so that the wound would empty what little was left into the street drain. _That should satisfy the Masquerade,_ he thought, _assuming they even recognise this for what it was._

The Lasombra started walking in a new direction as he finished his message to the Nosferatu, then experimented with the map function to verify that he was indeed heading to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery. Families had to pay to keep their dead relatives interred there, and there was a burial waiting list. Vale found the whole thing rediculously amusing. Even the family mausoleums were crowded, but there was enough space to sit in privacy. It was also a good place to summon Decius. It did not take much light to banish an Abyssal entity back to where it came from, which was why it had played no part in the catacombs trap Vale had laid. In the mausoleum, it could safely keep watch while he meditated.

His new plan involved infiltrating the hub of Camarilla territory and finding the most dangerous Toreador in Paris, save for Villon himself, and he needed to avail himself of every advantage he had.

Most Camarilla princes always had a sheriff as their right hand, an enforcer and his or her subordinates, called scourges, to handle the phsyical and typically violent aspect of ruling a city of Cainites... or Kindred, as the sect preferred to refer to their own kind as. Vale considered it a hypocricy, inventing a new name to distance themselves from the myth of their origin; and their end, which was getting harder to ignore or suppress during these final nights. Hauling in Cainites that spoke of Gehenna without extreme discretion was an increasingly common task since the events of 1999.

Prince Villon, being the most prideful of his peers and a sophisticated bully to boot, did not have a mere sheriff and scourges. He had the Masque. To their credit, they were the best at what they do. The leader of the Masque had staked Vale and nearly taken his head off with a garrotte, before delivering him to the Tremere that had been a Nazi doctor when he was alive. He had escaped trial and execution thanks to the Embrace of a Tremere, but that had merely refocused his medical attention from Jews to Cainites. Vale had been the last of his victims, experimented on as he lay in torpor. The Lasombra wished he could claim to have brought the justice Markus Mueller deserved when he had drained him dry and reduced his body to ash; but the doctor's soul had not been so easy to consume, and Vale's soul had been stained by it, beyond the simple monstrosity of diablerie. That, and the revelation he had experienced when he found what Mueller had sought in Paris, had changed everything.

Facing west and sitting crosslegged in the mausoleum with Decius exploring the interior surfaces, the Lasombra summoned a Shroud of Night: a cloud of tangible, viscous darkness that smothered light and sound. For Vale's enemies, it was akin to being immersed in tar; for himself, a protective coccoon that shut out the world and allowed him to focus inward. Lasombra methuselahs and some elders could do what he intended with a mere act of will, but with little more than a century under his belt, most of it being utterly incapable of what he intended, Vale was a layman compared to them.

About an hour passed before he felt it. He stood, and Decius automatically ceased its vigil to join its master and settle across the Cainite's shoulders and biceps under his trenchcoat. With a single step forward, Vale left his Shroud and entered the Abyss.

Night Sight was of no use in a realm entirely comprised of darkness - according to some, the darkness that preceded God's light - but with it, the Lasombra could see into the shadows of the physical world. His Shroud had been extinguised when he left the mausoleum, but he could still glimpse the interior of the structure from where he stood. He willed himself forward for the briefest moment, and what he could see passed too quickly to identify. The closer he got to his destination, the slower these leaps became. It would not do to spend too much time in the Abyss, for coelesced intelligences like Decius roamed the darkness, and some would think to possess any physical being they came across, if they could not be fought off. Vale wanted to spend the majority of his time spying, not travelling. Fortunately, travel through the Abyss was quite a shortcut through the physical world, and it was less than six kilometers between the cemetery and the Avenue des Champs-Elysees as the crow flies.

The entire avenue and the buildings that flanked it were an elysium, neutral ground where Kindred could mingle and snipe at each other in a social setting. Physical violence and use of disciplines were forbidden, and the punishments for breaking these laws (if caught) could be severe. From the Abyss, very little could be seen of a street so well-lit, which was the biggest clue that Vale had reached it. From the doors of unlit rooms, under furniture, between books and behind the shelves on which they stood, Vale listened for what was missing. Bodies were noisy structures, heartbeats and bloodflow, digestion and belching, breathing and sneezing and hiccuping... and dark when looked at from the inside. Bones and organs and everything not close enough to the skin for light to reach. Cainite hearts do not beat, blood is not digested so much as distributed, and breath is only required for speech.

Vale searched for the quieter ghosts that flitted across his vision. When he found them, he listened to the voices, then moved on to hear new ones. From room to room, building to building, he drifted until he found the shadow and voice of Villon. He had never met the prince, but he did recognise the seneschal of a nightclub he had visited in the past. The Lasombra's French was not _that_ good, but he knew enough to understand the context in which the seneschal used 'prince' to know who he talking to. Would the prince be able to sense his scrutiny despite where he was spying from? It was probably best to assume as much. He backed off as far as he dared; Villon did not seem to be going anywhere. If Vale could keep tabs on him until he met with his glorified sheriff, then follow _him_ until he is alone...

"Qui est la?"

Perhaps not.

"Je sais que quelqu'un nous regarde. Tres stupide, pour tenter d'espionner un prince."

The Lasombra chose to improvise rather than retreat. _"Bon nuit, prince Villon."_

The shadowy insides of the Toreador prince turned slightly in his direction. "Please stop raping my language with your unpracticed tongue."

Vale shifted slightly and spoke again. As before, Villon turned in the direction from which his voice now echoes. _"It is passable enough to fool the average Frenchman, and your disdain of all others is well known."_ Another shift, another reaction. _"I wonder which came first, your xenophobia or theirs."_

The prince's tone turned angry, having realised the nature of his conversational companion. "The Sabbat is not welcome in my city."

 _"The Sabbat is not present,"_ the Lasombra answered with equal emnity, before calming and shifting again with every sentence. _"I have no intentions on you or your city. You may attempt to use your Presence to draw me out or send me away, but summoning your sheriff might prove more informative."_

"Why should I indulge a Lasombra who refuses to present himself appropriately to the prince of the city, as tradition demands?"

_"Since the Burning Times, I considered such social niceties to be so much bullshit. The Sabbat was the better answer, until the hypocracy set in; and the Masquerade is the Camarilla's best redeeming virtue. Summon the head of the Masque, and you will learn a truth that should interest you. In return, I would learn a truth from you... or him. Otherwise, do as you wish, but... you are a Toreador, and you are a prince. Both enjoy little intrigues such as this, do they not?"_

* * *

The newcomer entered the hall and bowed low before Villon. "Mon prince."

"Nous avons un visiteur indesirable," the prince replied.  


Said visitor took that as his cue. _"Good evening, Jean Paul."_

The sheriff spun faster than the eye could follow to the shadow that was the source of the new voice. Villon observed his reaction dispassionately, before asking, "Peut-etre que vous avez une explication a cette intrusion?"

"I would greet you face to face," Vale added before Jean Paul could answer, resuming the habit of shifting from shadow to shadow, "But I fear that if I stick it my neck out, you will garrotte me and deliver me to the nearest Tremere. Again."

The Masque leader frowned as the name of the Tremere in question came to mind; then his eyebrows rose as the name of the Lasombra followed. "Trahern Valley."

_"Once upon a time."_

"Il parle de docteur Mueller?"

"...Oui, mon prince."

 _"We were all dreaming of Parisian streets running red with blood,"_   Vale explained. _"After the Week of Nightmares and how it ended for the Ravnos, a dream shared across all clans needed to be investigated. Any disruption I caused to the city was for the sake of learning the truth, before I was interrupted. Jean Paul's ghoul was a tasty treat, but I must admit, the Kindred himself was too fast for me. First came the stake, then the garrotte to the bone. A tortuous method of execution that I assume the prince approves of. Instead, your sheriff handed the Tremere a new test subject. I vaguely recall such behaviour to be frowned upon, back when the Tremere were stealing the gift of Caine from the Gangrel... the Tzimisce... the Salubri."_

"Le resultat aurait ete le meme," Jean Paul insisted.

"Mais Mueller a rencontre la mort finale, a la place," Villon stated. "Aux mains de ce Lasombra?" He observed the single not of his sheriff before continuing in English. "While the Ventrue are more willing to court the Tremere, I prefer to remain in their good graces. That is not easily done when one of their own meets _Final Death in my city_." A trace of genuine anger tainted the end of his statement, and the sheriff bowed his head.

Vale was more concerned with what his words implied. _"Then the prince does not allow a Tremere chantry in his city?"_

"Is that the truth you seek?" The prince asked.

_"It is."_

"There will never be a Tremere chantry in Paris."

The Lasombra counted the seconds before stating, _"Then you have no idea where the Tremere currently in Paris can be located."_

That got a rise out of both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did my ch1 notes hope over to my ch3 notes? Why are they still here after I wrote these notes?


	4. Crimson Horror

"...Welcome to day nine of Operation: Stupid Obstinate Vampire Roommate Won't Talk, which is all she has to do and we will totally give her this nice yummy blood to drink..."

It was hard to focus, though Laura's voice could still grab her attention. In her current state, Carmilla's body had quit most of the habits that helped her pass for a living, breathing, human being. No breathing meant no smelling until Laura said the magic word and waved a mug full of blood under her nose, but even if the vampire was too old for hunger-driven control loss, she was too far gone for it to make any difference.

Carmilla noticed Laura tense up suddenly, then rush to the door. Had someone knocked? She hadn't heard. The teenager was beyond her senses now, nothing left to keep her... she started twitching as she began to sink into oblivion...

Her senses jolted back to full awareness with the first mouthful of blood. Laura was holding her head up and feeding her. Her tense body was starting to relax... had she been convulsing?

With new blood coming in, her body decided it was past time to let the old blood go. Carmilla abruptly stopped drinking at the first stabbing sensation in her abdomen, but it was too late. "Damn it," she cursed as her period started.

Laura paused and asked, "Do you want some more?"

"...Fine." It was too late, and Carmilla did not know when she would get to feed again; might as well take what she could while it was being offered.

It took a couple more gulps for to realise that the blood was human. The fact that her own blood supply must have gone bad by now quickly followed. She pulled away and asked, "Where'd you get that?"

"Uh..." the teenager hesitated before the explaining in a rush, "We figured that we might need some leverage so LaFontaine got it from the campus hospital, she told them it was for an experiment about... hemophagy."

Carmilla had no idea what that was, and didn't care as long as the human had not acquired it from the same source as all the vampires on campus did. Her thoughts were interrupted as Laura tried to wipe her bloody lip and she jerked back instinctively from such a humiliating gesture, something she was incapable of explaining without prefacing it with an insult or two.

"...The night that we caught you, it sure looked like you were about to eat me."

That statement caused the vampire's brain to stall so badly that she spoke without thinking. "Wait, you thought that was me trying to eat you?"

"Well, if you weren't trying to eat me, then what were you trying to... oh."

 _Oh no._ The vampire turned away, utterly incapable of observing the look on Laura's face, or anything else in her direction. Or on that side of the room. Possibly that whole hemisphere.

"Oh!"

_Please, god, no._

"So, when you were hitting on me, you were really hitting on me!"

"Yes," Carmilla sighed, "And you were luring me into a trap." A giggle from the child proved to be the final nail in the coffin. "Could you just stake me now, 'cause I think that would be less mortifying than this conversation."

"Wow, that is... okay, even if I was to believe you, that still doesn't explain what you were doing at the parties and how you know all the missing girls." And just like that, Lauronica was back in Mars Mode. "If you want us to trust you, you have gotta tell us your side of the story."

"My side of the story..."

Ell had never asked to hear her side of the story.

Suddenly, Carmilla _did_ want to tell Laura her story. Of course, the teenager wanted to film the whole thing, and then there was that half hour of watching her hastily cut fabric and stitch a few sock puppets together... and how long had she had that cardboard theatre piece lying around? Watching the puppet with fangs that pointed the wrong way attack puppet Mircalla was rediculous; in truth, she had been strangled to death by an ordinary man who somehow took offence to the countess of Karnstein being so beautiful. When maman raised her, the man was facedown on the floor at the woman's feet, looking on in abject terror. Carmilla had drained him dry.

Laura kept trying to make her story a comedy, even when she explained her part in the ritual. It was not until she reached Ell's betrayal that the girl quit it with the puppets.

Carmilla mentioned the coffin as briefly as she could. Yes, she had literally rotted away under the earth, but she skipped over how she had been conscious for the entire experience, or how decades had felt like centuries before the explosives of the second world war had released her... or how many she had killed once night had fallen. Soldiers, refugees, dying or living...

Laura did not untie her, and after being stuck on her ass for nine days, the feeling of her abdomen being crushed in a vice was now being accompanied by the incessant sensation of someone drilling into her tailbone. The wetness travelled downward and then spread, there was nothing Carmilla could do about it, and on top of that she was still hungry. Respite only came with the evening, when Laura's friends gathered to discuss the latest revelations. LaFontaine duct taped a lidded cup with a straw to the vampire's bonds; they also set up their laptop to keep her entertained, or at least distracted while everyone watched the video of of her tragic backstory. Unfortunately, the only benefit to The Vampire Diaries was how much she could mock it, and the ginger squad still didn't want to let her loose.

Then Will paid them a visit in the middle of the night.

What _did_ Laura expect? She was a vampire, she was pissed off, and she'd been bleeding into her leather pants for the last twenty hours. Spending the last few minutes on her feet had just given the blood somewhere new to go, and if she didn't do something about it soon...

She started the shower before carefully kicking off her shoes and unfastening the corset. For a moment she considered laying down a towel, but with a muttered, "Fuck it," she simply stepped into the shower before peeling off the leather pants. She wouldn't be wearing them for a long while... assuming she didn't just burn them.

* * *

Ratting out the Tremere to Villon had been the right call. Since that night, the Masque had been set to the task of tracking them down. One of the six traditions was to present yourself to the prince of a city when you arrived; that the Tremere had failed to do so implied that they were either up to no good, or they assumed they would be sent straight back the way they had come. Three nights later, three Tremere were brought before prince Villon.

In deference to the Final Death of Markus Mueller in his city, Villon spared their unlives on the condition that they left the city immediately; the Masque would be escorting them to ensure they did exactly that. In deference to the prince, Vale chose not to interfere until they well clear of French soil; or airspace, as it turned out. They had flown from Vienna to Reims and infiltrated Paris through the nineteenth arrondissement. The pilot and co-pilot came with the plane, so the Lasombra had not deprived them of crew when killing the ghouls in the catacombs. A company plane from Vienna suggested that the heirarchy of the clan had sent them to Paris. Vale had never been able to glean what Mueller had done to him, and he had taken the opportunity to find out while making his way to Silas University. Whatever these Tremere were using to track him, he could not allow it to reach the clan's stronghold in Vienna, especially if it was his blood. If they could enact a blood curse against the entire Assamite clan, there was no telling what they might do with the blood of a single Cainite. Regardless, he could not allow himself to be tracked to Silas.

Decius had shadowed Jean Paul and kept its master apprised of developments, including the arrival of the Tremere plane in Paris. Tonight, once Vale entered the Abyss once more, it guided him to the correct airport.

The Kindred loved their private airplane hangers. Three cars, each bearing three Masque and one Tremere, came to a stop  a safe distance from the private jet. Only Jean Paul remained in the passenger seat of the first car, watching as his men escorted the warlocks to the plane even as his instincts informed him that he was still not alone.

"Monsieur Valley."

_"I go by Vale, these days."_

"Your behaviour has not improved since our last meeting."

_"On the contrary. If not for our shared allegiance, I would have told the prince his prized sheriff is a member of the Black Hand."_

"You _have_ no allegiance," Jean Paul scoffed.

 _"In which case, your betters have chosen to make use of me until I perish through my own folly. But there_ have _been changes. I am not as close to the Beast as I once was, and I am willing to do my part as the Final Nights wane. The threat of the antediluvians is real, and they must be stopped."_

The Toreador considered this, then asked, "What are your intentions?"

_"To take back what Mueller took from me. These Tremere have it now. Their ghouls had as much luck in finding me as yours did."_

"If you want to avoid-"

_"I promise nothing beyond waiting until they are away from your homeland."_

Silence fell as Jean Paul watched the jet receive the Tremere and seal them inside. Vale's presence seemed to linger even as his subordinates turned back to the cars, and his silence became more unnerving than his conversation. The Toreador ran a hand down his face, and as it hid his mouth, he muttered, "You're going to miss your flight."

 _"I'll catch up,"_   the Lasombra's voice whispered from within Jean Paul's own ear. He managed to reduce his flinch to a mere twitch, but it was enough. The amusement in Vale's voice as he chuckled could not be mistaken.

Within the Abyss, Vale stayed perfectly still until the driver returned to the car and bore Jean Paul away, though the other two remained to observe takeoff. He knew he was technically capable of keeping up with the aircraft, barring interruption, but Lasombra travelling the Abyss tend to attract entities of equal power. A poorly-timed attack could ruin everything. On the other hand, they were probably trying to find him as soon as they were ensconced in the privacy of the aircraft, and he had no idea if their ritual could identify his relative position from where he was now. If he was currently hidden from their ritual...

Decius was able to sustain itself in the physical world by being fed a small measure of its master's _vitae_ every night. Vale gave it a mental command to return to the mausoleum and manifest there, then return to him the following night. It understood and obeyed. If he was right about how they were tracking him, they might be tricked into believing they had left the antagonistic Lasombra behind in Paris.

The jet engines that had been idling until now increased power, and the aircraft started making its way out of the hanger. Vale drifted in its wake. The surge of power as it took off meant nothing in the Abyss, though it took a moment for the Lasombra to match speed with the sudden acceleration. The plane began to turn eastward as it gained altitude, but eventually its course and speed settled. Once it did, Vale split his attention between maintaining his spead and distance from the jet, and his own more shadowy surroundings. Night Sight did not differentiate between the Abyss and the fragmented intelligences that dwelled within it, but he would feel it if something approached, like a ripple in water, if he was alert.

It took longer than he expected. Perhaps he drew less attention to himself when travelling this fast, but experience had taught him to assume what could go wrong, would. The aircraft probably was out of French airspace by the time something in the Abyss shifted and began to give chase. Vale pushed a little harder, mingling with the shadows within the jet, passing from tail to the cockpit. The deepest shadow save for closed cabinets was in the entryway. The Lasombra situated himself as readily as he could, then pushed _out_ as well as forward.

Vale leapt out of the shadow, landing on all fours on the carpeted cabin floor, next to the doorway and folded staircase by which the Tremere had entered the aircraft. He did not wait to discern if the thump of his landing had been noticed. Remaining crouched, he pulled a pair of stakes from the outer pockets of his trenchcoat, each a tightly coiled helix of wood and silver; one of the benefits of situating himself in New York was that one could get anything for the right price. The idea had come to him after discovering that not all kuei-jin - as the Asian vampires called themselves - were susceptible to wooden stakes, and solid silver points were more efficient than wood, however hard it was. He then pulled Arms of the Abyss from the shadows of his sleeves and his back, under the coat. The pair from his sleeves folded in on themselves, forming tubes that reached back to the stakes in his hands.

An alarmed voice was raised from somewhere behind him. Out of time, he summoned a Shroud to blanket any further noise and keep the occupants of the cockpit in the (metaphorical) dark, filling the entryway from floor to ceiling before flooding rearward, the Lasombra marching in behind the crest of tarry shadow.

The Tremere were standing around a conference table set along one side of the cabin. A single light source persisted, the open flame of a candle on the table; the Shroud seemed to sparkle within its flickering radius in bizarre, coruscating contradiction. The Tremere themselves were ignoring the constrictive nature of the darkness that had enveloped them, frowning in concentration as they marshalled their disciplines in defence. One's eyes widened and his head turned toward the Lasombra, most likely sensing his aura, and thereby nominating himself as Vale's first target. While two Arms lashed at the faces of the other two in order to disrupt their concentration and delay whatever response they were planning, another whipped around the base of the chair from which the first target had stood, knocking the Tremere's knees out from under him with the seat, then tipping backward to tumble the warlock onto his back. Releasing his grip on one of his stakes, the tubular Arm slammed down on the target's chest before launching the stake along its length and ramming it through the Kindred's heart.

Continuing to harry the other two with headstrikes, Vale took a moment before deciding that the one nearest the candle was in charge of this little coterie. Changing tactics, the longer Arms struck once again, this time enveloping heads and hands, adding to the effect of the Shroud. The other Tremere was then slammed upward against the cabin wall before being staked and released to collapse across the table.

Fire erupted from the remaining warlock's hand, disintigrating the tentacle of shadow holding it. The palm opened, launching the softball-sized fireball across the table at the Lasombra. The Beast within Vale riled with instinctual fear as the flame cut through the darkness like a blowtorch through butter. All the Abyssal Arms - incuding those constraining the Tremere - whipped back between the flame and the Cainite it sought, buying precious milliseconds as Vale threw himself backwards. The fireball impacted against the far wall of the cabin, melting plastic and faux wood panelling, revealing the composite metal beneath.

Rotschreck was replaced by frenzy, and the Beast sought to utterly destroy the source of the fire. Vale had leapt across the table and delivered a Potence-powered punch to the Tremere's sternum before he could get back in control. The savage instinct in his heart wanted to tear his enemy apart bone by bone, but he managed to ride it out, delivering more punches to break the lowest ribs, doing his best to ensure the Tremere was in too much pain to do it again before switching to breaking fingers and wrists.

When the Lasombra regained enough clarity to realise that the Tremere had tempered the fireball to ensure it would not compromise the cabin, he channeled his remaining fury into the Black Metamorphosis he rarely used, and usually only for psychological purposes. Willing the Shroud to center on him and shrink, the darkness enveloping the Tremere seemed to recede. As the wounded warlock watched, the shadows shrank and folded in on themselves, revealing a humanoid form crouched on the table, utterly back save for a pair of pale yellow irides, almost glowing in comparison to the shifting darkness around them.

Vale grabbed the Tremere by the throat, tossing him over the table in a semicircle to land facefirst on the cabin floor. The warlock rolled away and tried to stand, tried to will his _vitae_ to heal his wounds; but his effort was interrupted by another shadowy tentacle wrapping around his neck and raising him up to just short of allowing him to get his legs under him. Those yellow eyes bored into him again... and this time, he was unable to look away. He desperately searched his mind for a way to break the hold, but the metamorphosed Lasombra commanded, **"Stop,"** and he was forced to obey. He stopped moving. Stopped healing. Stopped thinking.

An unlife-long obsession with Obtenebration had left Vale deficient in the other disciplines of his clan, but he had started making up for it in recent years, especially since the diablerie that had granted him the power of the seventh generation. Far fewer of his own kind were now capable of using Dominate against him, including his own sire and other elders of her - their - generation. Staring down upon the Tremere who was now powerless to act without him, he ordered, **"Give me what is mine."**

The Tremere did not respond. Did not move. The Lasombra repeated his command, to the same result. The warlock's will was under his control... Vale growled at the obvious. **"Nein sprechen English?"**

"Nein," the Tremere was compelled to answer, though one corner of his mouth was able to quirk upward in defiance.

Vale no longer sighed physically, but mentally was a different matter. _Well,_ he thought, _this is going to be fun._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I stole some dialogue from ep19. Bite me.
> 
> I'm hoping vampire Danny doesn't drain Kirsch dry, but those first thirsts are typically fatal to sate...


	5. Comprehension

Despite the appearance of a matte black figure, its entire surface was in constant motion. It was most noticable around the edges, especially about the head, shoulders, and arms depending on their position: black flames licking across the extremities, burning silently and in slow motion. Kine would run screaming if they saw it, crying about demons or monsters encroaching upon a scientifically explainable world... which was to be expected whenever darkness behaved contrary to nature. Even to a Tremere familiar with 'blood magic', it would have been unnerving to behold even before the monster had incapacitated your two compatriots and inflicted a significant amount of pain upon you.

The effect was lost, somewhat, as the figure typed awkwardly on a smartphone.

Eyes, black on yellow on black, rose from the screen to the Tremere. **" Gib mir was mein ist."** The accent was not good, but the command was understood, and that was all that mattered. The wounded warlock struggled to find his feet, and the shadowy tentacle about his neck lifted him high enough to achieve the task before releasing him. Now that the eyes were no longer locked to his, he struggled to break free of the Lasombra's Domination, but despite his own not inconsiderable willpower, he could only slow his movements as he walked to a cabinet and retrieved a heavy briefcase from within.

"Testing." The word did not carry the preternatural authority Vale was inflicting on the thaumaturge.

A pause, a bleep, and then a female voice answered, "Testen."

The Tremere returned to the table and laid the briefcase upon it. He then dipped a hand into his pocket, retrieved a vial of elaborate design, and placed it by the briefcase.

The Lasombra spoke into the device again, then parroted the response. **"Entfernen der inhalt unversehrt."**

The warlock cursed silently. It was all he could do as he disabled the trap in the lock before opening the briefcase and carefully removing each item individually. They included more vials, physical samples that Vale must have healed once he had been revived, and what was left of his bloodstained clothes after Jean Paul had finished with him.

**"Gibt es noch etwas von mir in einem anderen standort?"**

"Nein."

Vale reached down and took one of the Tremere's broken hands, holding it palm up before his chest. He did the same with his other hand, then placed the smartphone upon them. Tapping the microphone symbol on the screen, he spoke again, listened to the response, and returned his eyes to those of the warlock. **"Sprechen sie in diesem. Erklaren sie den rituellen sie verwendet um mich zu finden."**

Sharing such secrets was entirely contrary to any Tremere. A burning anger rose within the Usurper, and it carried in his voice, apparently to the Lasombra's cold amusement.

"It is a combination of several rituals," the female voice translated, "Designed to sense mystical effects and track users of thaumaturgy."

Vale was surprised that the device knew the translation for the last word, though it had sounded similiar enough for him to catch it himself. **"Warum wurde dieses ritual geschaffen? Die es geschaffen?"**

"After the destruction of the anti-tribe, a subsect created rituals to hunt transgressors using Thaumaturgy."

**"Sie sind einer dieser jager?"**

"Yes."

The Lasombra considered this information as he looked over the items on the table. The destruction of the Tremere _antitribu_ had been one of many disturbing events in 1999. The clan operated under a pyramid scheme of control, and any who escaped the system were highly prized by the Sabbat. Someone or something had drawn most of them to a single location and burned them all to ash. Something as terrible as whatever had caused the Gangrel clan to break away from the Camarilla. It would make sense to capitalise on such an advantage by hunting down any remaining rogue thaumaturges.

Any possession of his could theoretically be used to track him, but these Tremere had been using his _vitae_ to track him dpecifically by his use of Obtenebration; the signature discipline of his clan had a cost in blood, just as Tremere thaumaturgy did, and they were not the only clans that practiced something similiar. Vale recognised the vials for what they were, magically created containers that had kept his _vitae_ fresh for all these years... and there were quite a few of them.

**"Was wolltest du mit meinem blut zu tun?"**

"Whatever we could to learn about and destroy you."

**"Nennen und beschreiben sie die rituale die dies zu tun konnte."**

The warlock's face darkened considerably. He began to hope that this line of questioning would provoke a frenzy that would break him free of the Lasombra's Domination, and fostered the anger in his heart even as his mouth rambled on for some time without him. He named and described rituals typically used with the blood of enemies, from tracing their lineage to remotely turning them to ash; the latter required an entire night of chanting and proximity to the victim, but that was small comfort compared to the knowledge that such a ritual even existed. Vale felt the familiar urge to learn all he could, but he was on a schedule and they were flying in the direction of the dawn, let alone the stronghold of the Tremere.

One tentacle flattened and spread across the the table, pooling around the items and flooding them until they were lost from sight. When the darkness receded, they were gone. The Lasombra then retrieved the pair of staked Tremere, laying them on the table with their heads hanging off the edge, their throats bare. **"Trinken sie so viel sie konnen ohne sie zu toten,"** he instructed as he retrieved his phone, and watched as his captive shuffled over to the nearest one and sank his fangs into his neck. One after the other, they were drained to the point of torpor. When it was done, tentacles yanked the stakes from their chests, wiping them fairly clean on their shirts before enveloping them.

Compared to their conversation thus far, it was a simple matter to instruct the last Tremere to take a seat, strap himself in, and remain there until landing. Vale considered leaving without a word, but instead of pocketing the phone, he spoke into it. "I destroyed Markus Mueller in frenzy. After what he did to me, I do not regret it. Tell his sire that, unless he sent Markus to Paris to find an angel, he did not have as much control over his childe as he thought." He paused as the device translated, then added, "And if you choose to continue pursuing me, I will not be so lenient."

Having said his peace, Vale withdrew to the rear of the aircraft. Once he was in the bathroom, he dropped the metamorphosis, pocketed what items he could, and tucked the old clothes under his belt. Once everything seemed as secure as he could make it, he opened the lid of the toilet and sat crosslegged upon the seat, facing the flush lever. As his transformation to Tenebrous Form began, he lay the fingertips of one hand on the lever and waited as more and more of him lost cohesion to drain into the toilet bowl. When all that remained was a forearm, the hand pulled the lever before disintigrating along with the rest of the Lasombra.

A patch of darker shadow plummeted through the night sky. It would take a while to reach the ground from this altitude, but the arrival would be harmless. When he reformed, he would burn everything the Tremere had laid their hands on before finding somewhere to spend the day.

* * *

Carmilla's personal backstory was one thing, but spilling the few details she knew about what happened to the girls who went missing? Far more likely to upset her mother. Fortunately, that worry had been pushed to the back of her mind, first by Xena with her bright green pants and stake (though watching Laura shoot her pining ass down was a hoot); then by the alchemy club's giant mind control mushrooms. Most of the students in Crowley Hall had gone out with masks or scarves covering their faces to avoid being contaminated by the spores as they hacked the mushrooms down. Carmilla had followed Laura onto the quad, but she spent more time watching Laura hack away at the fungi than helping. And the very next day, her alone time with Laura had been interrupted once again by the remaining two thirds of the ginger squad. Yes, the mad scientist had information, but when they started interrogating her again...

The starvation diet was preferable.

A daylight escape from the dorm meant only one destination: the library. Its consciousness was often inscrutible, but Carmilla had learned a long time ago that library could be... comfortable.

Maybe it liked her too. If so, she had no idea why.

The building itself was massive enough to hold hundreds of thousands of books on a thousand shelves spanning nearly two floors. Everything looked and smelled as old as the library's three ancient librarians, all dark wood and old paper. Igor sat at the front desk as always, grunting in acknowledgement as his single oversized eye tracked Carmilla's course to the creaky spiral staircase that led to the second floor.

Most students were not inclined to come upstairs unless they had to, let alone cross the rickety wooden bridge which was the only way to reach the landing on the far side. Even the ghosts seldom came this close to where the library's copy of the Silas Charter was kept. Even the other books on its shelf gave it as much space as they could. It gave off a feeling of electricity when you got close enough, but as long as Carmilla avoided that particular sensation, this was the best part of the library in which one could read in peace... especially with the eerie silence that pervaded the upper floor despite the cavernous interior of the building. She wandered the stacks, eventually pulling a book from a shelf and settling in an armchair situated where there was enough natural light to read by, without having to suffer the weakness that would come from direct sunlight.

Instead of actually reading the pages she turned, she found herself thinking about Laura. Big surprise.

Brave. Strong. Righteous. Those were the words Laura had used when describing what she liked about the ginger giant. Being a vampire had given Carmilla an advantage over her - though reaching her throat had been a stretch - but she doubted that physical strength was all Laura was talking about. Besides, when you are strong enough to rip out someone's spine, there is nothing particularly brave about exercising that strength. Carmilla knew she was not the bravest soul in Silas, but she was a survivor. That was a strength, if not one the teenager seemed to have difficulty comprehending. At least she had learned to appreciate the vampire's sarcasm. After spending several lifetimes existing alongside humanity, it was impossible not to develop that form of wit.

Laura did not want to be protected like she was still a child; but she _was_ still a child, and she had said that while wearing the charm bracelet. Of course, altering a grade did not compare to being kidnapped and infected with brain parasites, so perhaps she was not being a total hypocrite. (Microbiology revealed monsters of an entirely different caliber to what Carmilla was used to, and she was glad she could not imagine what the spores from the giant mushrooms were doing to control peoples' brains specifically enough to set fire to the Lustig.) That conversation was also the second time Laura had brought up the overprotective dad. Carmilla assumed it was connected to whatever happened to the teenager's mother, but asking about her would have probably  have resulted in a conversation that was far too sappy for her liking.

Besides, it's not like she actually cared.

It would just be nice to have the option. To be close enough to Laura that asking something so personal would not be so invasive.

Carmilla fell asleep while imagining the possibilities. She may have been drinking regularly again, but she was still a nocturnal creature at heart.

* * *

Decius found its master north of Munich, using Arms of the Abyss to traverse the unlit landscape or leap above the streetlights of the autobahns. Vale had underestimated how much of Franch there was to fly over before passing into German airspace. The problem with Germany was that the Ventrue held and dominated the country as the Toreador did France, and the antagonism between the Ventrue and Lasombra clans predated both countries by centuries, if not millenia. They respectively led the Camarilla and the Sabbat in these modern nights, but before the Convention of Thorns, the Ventrue had been the power behind the thrones of the old world, while the Lasombra had been the power behind the catholic church. When Vale was mortal, he believed that while crown and church were vying for world domination, the merchants had snuck in and beaten them both to it. Since learning how Cainite society had influenced human society throughout history, he suspected the truth was rather more complicated.

The princes of the German cities were among the eldest active Ventrue in the world. The Lasombra had no intention of entering Munich due to his own kind, but one of the reasons that Cainites were urban dwellers was because werewolves preferred to roam rural areas. Vale preferred long distance travel via the Abyss because he could avoid both; having travelled the world once, there had been enough encounters with the shapeshifters to dissuade further encounters. Canis Nobile once suggested that the Gangrel clan used to have an accord with them, perhaps due to the shared ancestry that was hinted at in the Book of Nod, but werewolves invariably attacked Cainites on sight in the modern nights. Either they were also aware of the Final Nights, or the results of science and technology spreading across the world had left one hell of a chip on their massive furry shoulders.

The flightplan of the Tremere jet must have included avoiding the city's airspace before turning slightly south for Vienna. Perhaps Vale should have fed on one of the staked Tremere, but that would have resulted in a blood bond, albeit of the lowest level, but if they could create a bloodstone from their own _vitae_ and plant it on someone or something as their own personal locator beacon, they might also be able to use a blood bond as a tracking method. The risk was simply too great.

Vale still wanted to feed before resuming his travels in the Abyss. While his efforts on the aircraft had drained him, he was only peckish rather than hungry, but it was always a good idea to top up the tank before embarking on any serious endeavour. The Abyss was serious business. Werewolves, even more so, and while his stakes did have silver, he knew it would not be enough. He had crossed the French Alps on foot, once, and he had only survived because he had been able to ambush a werewolf and slit its throat with a silver blade before it could summon more of its kind. He assumed it survived, and certainly did not linger long enough to find out. If the blood of animals could nourish him, he would have happily resorted to that, but after a century or so, nothing less than human would do. Only the older Gangrel and Nosferatu could counter this particular inefficiency; it required mastery of the Animalism discipline to achieve. While Vale had an interest in most disciplines beyond those of his clan, controlling animals was not among his priorities.

With Decius once again draped across his shoulders under his coat, the Lasombra surveyed a gas station from the edge of the parking lot, a safe distance from the whores. There was more than one truck in the lot, their drivers most likely refuelling themselves before fucking, sleeping or continuing on. He had to wait several hours until there was only one truck left and the potential witnesses had moved on for the night. With one of the Arms, he was able to unlock one of the truck doors from the inside; he climbed in, sat in the sleeping area behind the driving seat, and waited.

He attacked immediately once the returning driver had slammed his door shut, a hand over his mouth and fangs in his neck. It was a bulky body; he could take enough to satisfy his need without too much risk to victim's blood pressure. Once he had his fill, he dragged the driver into the bed, looked him in the eye and said, **"Schlafen und vergessen,"** before rolling him over to sleep it off. The driver promptly started snoring as Vale sat crosslegged in the space between the bed and the seats.

Instead of filling the cab and suffocating the kine, the Shroud was spherical and only large enough to envelop the Lasombra; maintaining its shape was an act of will he had practiced often, and it aided his meditation now. With only a few hundred kilometers to go, he could reach Silas University with enough time to spare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used the app on my phone for the translations. I wouldn't be surprised if they were inaccurate. I'm still waiting for someone to do European Portuguese instead of just Brazilian.
> 
> Also, I failed to mention this last time, but: remember when Silent Bob struck Azrael with the blessed driver? (If you haven't watched Dogma yet, do so, you heathen!) That's how I envision Vale's transformation to Tenebrous Form.
> 
> Details regarding the library were purloined from SilasConfidential on wattpad.


	6. Darkness Denied

"Oh, hell no, we are not apologising to them. We are ready for the wierd. We thrive on it. We tape our flamethrowers to our pulse rifles, and we make the wierd submit. We're going to the library."

 _Okay,_ Carmilla thought as she tried to get her smile under control, _Maybe I'm warming up to that one._ The look on Laura's face when she turned to her didn't help.

LaFontaine's zeal for information may have been responsible for the vampire's hasty retreat in the morning, but she didn't push it when Carmilla returned, and now that same zeal was turned against the ginger giant... and Pollyanna, for some reason. Laura set the latest video to upload before standing and picking up her bear spray and large iron frying pan; while less enthusiastic about returning to the library, she was willing to see it through. She walked out the door only to hear it close a few footsteps later and glanced back... to find Carmilla on this side of it.

"You're coming!?" the teenager asked in high-pitched surprise.

"Well, after that little speech, I just have to see what happens."

"...Oookay," Laura said once it was clear no further explanation was coming. "We'll probably need all the help we can get. And it'll be nice to have some supernatural on our side this time."

Carmilla was hoping that her presence would make the library less hostile, but if she mentioned that she might have to explain it, which the vampire doubted was possible. "So what happened between side-swoop and curly?" she asked instead as she followed the teenager down the corridor.

"Huh? Oh, you mean... well, Perry kinda freaked out after you... left." Laura hoped it didn't sound too much like she had been about to say 'freaked out' twice. "Part of it was because of all the wierd that's going on, but... they grew up together. Did you know that? And LaFontaine was always Susan back then, but now Perry's kinda confused because her best friend wants to be just LaFontaine, and use they/them pronouns."

"Why?"

"They want to be non-binary. Gender neutral."

"Ah."

Laura glanced back over her shoulder. "That's it?"

The vampire shrugged. "Yeah, it's fine. I was just curious. Not like I care."

"But you'll use the pronouns, right?"

Carmilla smirked. Laura didn't even make an issue of the fact that she hardly ever referred to anyone by their name, and somehow, it as cute. "Sure, cupcake," she answered.

LaFontaine was waiting outside the Crowley Hall entrance, presumably because it had taken them that long to notice Laura was not hot on their heels. Their eyed widened when they realised Carmilla was joining them; the vampire merely shrugged, and got a grin and a nod in return. With a combination of marching, walking and ambling, the trio headed across the quad to the library.

* * *

Vale did not scare easily, but this was getting... unnerving.

When the Lasombra had begun the final leg of his journey, he had noticed the presence of an Abyssal entity almost immediately. It did not attack or withdraw, it was merely present. In Vale's experience, such behaviour was unprecedented.

The same could be said of it _following_ him. It's distance fluctuated vaguely, as far as he could tell, but it never actually closed the distance. If a rational mind had been involved, he would have thought that it was already travelling in the same direction and had merely hesitated in surprise at his appearance, or if it was merely curious about his destination. Vale knew better. Over the last fifteen years, he had summoned various Abyssal entities, and they were all deranged, obsessive fragments of intelligence rather than a complete personality. The trick was not to find a somewhat sensible one so much as find one he was capable of working with.

When he had drawn Decius into the physical world, it had quickly become obsessed with shapes, specifically curves and spirals. The Lasombra had drawn the name he had chosen for it in the shadowstuff of which it was comprised, and it had been as delighted with the shape of the letters as such a thing could be. As its understanding of the physical world grew, it also developed an unreasoning curiosity with accidental death. Light could banish it back to where it had come from, but not destroy it; the notion of bodies and minds ceasing to function was an alien concept. If left to its own devices, it would have spent its nights flitting about New York, arranging bizarrely unlikely and potentially fatal accidents just to see what happened. Vale had tried to turn that talent onto his fellow Cainites, but he had yet to achieve any success; the greater challenge of 'pranking' the undead simply did not appeal to it, probably because they were not alive to begin with.

Decius itself was getting twitchy as more of its kind sporadically joined the first in following them. Vale felt like a motorboat being chased by a pod of dolphins, but the image was far too optimistic. And the longer it went on, the more it resembled a shoal of fish moving in unison. Not so much dolphins as piranhas.

Perhaps their growing numbers was why, in a realm devoid of light and sound, Vale began to hear whispering.

At first it was no more than unintelligible background noise, in a place where it should not exist in the first place. Then he began to make out the sound of words. At first it sounded like Latin, which he was only familiar with because of his decades in Madrid, where the Sabbat were ruled by an archbishop whose Embrace had twisted his roman catholic origins. The more he heard, the less certain he was that he recognised it; and without the usual clues people learned to take for granted, it was impossible to tell if he was hearing with his ears or his mind. All he knew is that, the closer he got to Silas University, the more intent the whispers became.

Much of Styria was mountainous or forested. Vale was passing over the latter to the former, slowing as he guessed the area in the distance was obscured by the lights of his destination, when Decius flooded upward from the collar of his trenchcoat and enveloped the Lasombra's neck and head. The whispering became a loud hiss in his ears as the treacherous shade began to constrict...

* * *

The basement of the library was not in as good a condition as the rest of the building, probably because no contracting agency would be willing to effect repairs even if the archives existed during the daylight hours. The walls were a combination of crumbling plaster and subsiding brickwork. The water from the sprinklers triggered during their last visit could not have helped, but the sub-level was not as damp and musty as expected.

The trio were creeping down a cramped corridor when LaFontaine commented on the condition of their surroundings, and Carmilla's sarcasm responded. "Maybe the fires of hell dried it out whenever it wasn't here."

"You don't mean that, do you?" Laura asked with nervous optimism, and the vampire made sure she saw her roll her eyes at the question. While the teenager was momentarily silenced - they were supposed to be listening for the sounds of skittering or gnashing pages - it did not stop this line of questioning for long. "How does that even work, anyway? How does a basement vanish without the library collapsing through where it used to be? And why? Is it some sort of security feature? Are only vampires supposed to have access to the archives? Does your mother _control_ the library?"

Carmilla sighed as the barrage of slightly more sensible questions continued, waiting for the teenager to take a breath. "I'm not sure, okay? I don't even know if she had it built, or if she found it and built the university around it. All I know is... the library has a mind of its own."

"So it _chose_ to vanish the stairs and attack us, the last time we were here."

"Maybe."

"Or maybe it doesn't have that kind of control," LaFontaine chimed in. "It could have been an automatic response to intruders, like antibodies reacting to foreign bacteria."

Laura tried to wrap her head around that. "So, it's more like the card catalogue and the books were attacking us, instead of the library itself."

"And maybe the basement doesn't _go_ somewhere else, otherwise the building _would_ collapse." They flashed a grin at Laura for her logical thinking. "If it can shift stairs around, why not the entire floor? It just does it in a way that makes it inaccessible but keeps the library standing. Ooh, maybe some sort of non-euclidean architecture..."

They reached the end of the corridor and came to a halt, peering into the first archive room. As before, the only sound was the soft hum of the computer network, its monitors dark until prompted otherwise. Carmilla huffed impatiently at the hesitation of the other two, walked into the room and to the nearest keyboard/monitor combo and tapped the return button. Her companions cautiously joined her, but once they were assured that nothing else had changed, LaFontaine placed their baseball bat on the desk and typed 'the hungry light' into the archive search box. After the last time, she expected the list to come up almost before she had finished typing. Instead, a small square popped up in the lower corner of the screen, looking like an old photo of a heavily-dressed young man. A typing sound effect began, and text appeared beside the photo.

_Hello again._

* * *

Vale didn't have time to consider betrayal under his current circumstances. While tearing at the entity with Potence-fueled fingers, he tried to open his mouth just enough to get his fangs ripping into the shadowstuff that had turned on him. Decius had the superior leverage and was more likely to crush the Lasombra's jaw than let his secondmost dangerous weapon against it free. That left the first, which bore immediate consequences, and possibly beyond... but if the mass of Abyssal entities following him were also going on the offensive, he had little choice. The Cainite could not see through Decius as could the effects of his own Obtenebration, but perhaps he could buy a scant second or two in order to orient himself when the immediate consequence occurred.

Slowing as much as he dared, Vale raised a hand before his face, palm upward. From it, a flame akin to that of a wooden torch flared.

Decius convulsed, coiling away from the light and retreating to the far side of the humanoid's head with the speed of a cracking whip. The Abyss itself convulsed with it, expunging the source of the offending light. Vale was suddenly falling, long enough to extinguish the flame in his hand before he landed on his side, breaking his hip and several ribs. The Beast within him snarled at the pain, but he needed to keep his wits and kept it buried as he willed his _vitae_ to his injuries in order to heal. He found himself in a high open space, but indoors, in what felt like a cathedral, except there were bookcases everywhere.

He was in a library.

So was Decius. It had been in physical contact with him when he had come through, and now it writhed on the ground beside him like a worm in upturned earth.

Recognition of the treacherous minion only infuriated the Beast further, the thirst for vengeance in danger of becoming all-consuming.

The Camarilla considered succumbing to frenzy to be a weakness, while the Sabbat preffered to 'ride the Beast' which essentially meant giving it a long leash without letting it loose entirely. Vale was more experienced in the latter. His rational mind wanted to destroy Decius, damage its shadowy form to the extent that the fragmented intelligence was banished back to the Abyss. There it would remain, without him summoning it back... but instinct demanded punishment. The Beast wanted the thing destroyed utterly, and Vale saw no reason to disagree.

Decius was a circular swirl of shadow, now. As its former master watched, it spiraled upward like a giant toy slinky, arching toward the Lasombra in order to trap and constrict him once again. It would be so easy to burn it down to tatters and consume it, but Vale would not risk Thaumatrugy here, especially now he knew the Tremere were actively seeking practitioners outside their own clan; and not while he was so close to the Beast, which was the source of the Cainite fear of fire and sunlight, just as it was the source of their bloodlust and mindless rage.

The Beast of a Lasombra drew on darkness, not light.

Eyes darkening from yellow to orange as he gave the Beast its due, Vale drew Arms of the Abyss from the surrounding shadows and set them to entangling Decius before he leapt into the fray, tearing at the betrayer with hands and teeth.

* * *

"So if we're still in here when the sun rises and the basement does its thing, we might get sucked into the library catalogue too?" LaFontaine asked.

 _I fear that is the most likely outcome,_ J.P. Armitage replied with the usual click-clack accompaniment of his interface.

Dawn was hours away, but the notion of joining J.P. in a state of disembodied consciousness sat well with no one present. "Where's the book on the hungry light?" Laura asked.

A map of the archives showed up on the screen, along with an image of the book in question. "You two stay here," Carmilla said, "I'll go get it." She walked off before anyone could argue otherwise.

Laura was torn between staying put and following Carmilla. LaFontaine was already asking J.P. about his involvement with thier previous visit, so they wouldn't be alone, exactly... and Carmilla might be better off without having to look after the frail human... but she still didn't like the idea of the vampire diving into the archives alone.

Watching her walk away, though... _Oh, stop it,_ she thought to herself. _Even if Laf is right about me crushing on her, now is not the time to enjoy the view... wow, she doesn't have a bad curve on her, does she?_

"You paying attention, Laur?" LaFontaine's voice interrupted.

Laura started, and hoped the darkness would disguise the blush she could feel coming. "Sorry! What?"

"J.P. doesn't think the Dean controls the library, she just uses it."

"Oh... right, that's... what about when it attacked us, the last time we were here?"

 _I'm afraid it often does that,_ J.P. communicated, _Though I have observed both a pattern and preference regarding nocturnal visitors._

"How so?" LaFontaine asked.

_Well, first-time visitors are invariably attacked, but if they survive and choose to return, there is typically less resistence to their presence. At first I thought it resembled a biological response, but since deducing the library's sentience, I began considering the possibility of an emotional motive._

"Respect for seekers of knowledge?" LaFontained glanced about themselves with a grin. "Cool. I guess that's why we're still on one piece."

"Don't jinx us," Laura whispered urgently.

_It may also be due to your arrival with Miss Karnstein. The library behaves more sympathetically toward her, yet remains antagonistic with Mr. Eisen._

"Who?" they asked simultaniously, and a new image appeared on the screen. It was another older, monochrome photograph, but the subject was instantly recognisable.

"Will," Laura murmered.

"What about the Dean?" LaFontaine asked.

_Her visits have been rare, at least since I have been here, but the library has never been hostile toward her._

"Well, if Carmilla is any indication, it probably knows better than to upset an ancient, powerful vampiric cult leader." The redhead blinked as the inference struck her. "Maybe there's information on her down here, too."

_There is no direct reference to her in the catalogue, but she is likely mentioned in the records of the board of governers._

The conversation was interrupted by the sound of distant skittering. After a moment, Laura called as loudly as she dared, "Carmilla?"

* * *

 Wrestling with a giant snake would have been easy. Wrestling with the T-1000, not so much. Wrestling with an elemental shade unhindered by the notion of maintaining a vaguely humanoid form was infuriating, especially when it involved a former minion and what that familiarity entails. Ultimately, Vale was tearing Decius to pieces because they were in his world, not the Abyss; though riding the Beast had its advantages, such as ignoring the pain of his wounds until the destruction of whatever vexed him was complete.

Focused on his opponent as he was, the Lasombra did not notice they was more going on until a hardcover copy of Alan Wake's "Return To Sender - An Alex Casey Thriller" landed on one of Decius' extrusions and bit down before twisting back and forth in an effort to inflict some nasty paper cuts.

The sight caused enough confusion to distract the Beast, and as the frenzy faded, Vale stepped back from the fight, a fragment of shadowstuff in his teeth disintegrating as he looked about himself.  Books were flying through the air, surrounding them both. The Abyssal Arms he had drawn from the shadows of the bookcases were covered in them; the shelves were still emptying as more volumes of modern fiction slid off their shelves and continued their horizontal trajectory instead of succumbing to gravity. He realised that the weaker strikes he had been experiencing during the fight had not been from Decius at all, as several tomes took the opportunity to launch themselves directly at him. He batted one away from its collision course with his head and ignored the rest. A few books had latched onto his trenchcoat in various places, pinching the fabric between their pages and... growling? Growling as they tugged and pulled like a pet trying to wrangle a toy away from its owner.

As he plucked one book after another off of himself and tossed them at Decius, he realised that this must be the Silas University library described by Laura Hollis in one of her videos, hostile reading material and all. He was exactly where he wanted to be, despite being blinded at the time, which suggested something deliberate. Had he been followed through the Abyss tonight, or herded? Was flying literature the result of a protective - and ironic - Tremere ritual; and if so, why use it on kine literature instead of thaumaturgical tomes?

The Lasombra's line of thought was interrupted by a more thorough battering from the surrounding literature, raising his ire once more. _Act now, think later,_ he told himself. Decius was weak. If it was banished to the Abyss, the various aspects and attributes of its personality and intelligence would likely seperate and never come together in the 'Decius configuration' again. But the denizens of the Abyss were behaving in a uniquely atypical way, and until he knew why, he could not be sure whether or not allowing the entity to return to the void would give someone or something else an advantage over him. That simply could not be allowed, which meant consuming him.

The act was similiar to diablerie, though there was no soul to desecrate with the act. He had done it before, in anticipation of a fight he might not otherwise win. Draining the darkness into himself added to his own strengths until the next sunrise; the drawback was, he also took on its weaknesses for the same amount of time. The obsessions Decius harboured would become his. Perhaps he would also understand what had motivated it to betray him.

Vale summoned a Shroud of Night that encompassed himself, Decius, and the written whirlwind that surrounded them. The books that were in flight slowed to a crawl, swimming through something similiar to tar. Trahern could see and move freely through his own creation, and as he gave the remaining Arms of the Abyss the new task of tearing the hostile literature off the treacherous shadowthing, he set upon Decius itself.

* * *

When the skittering started, Carmilla stopped browsing the contents of the bookshelf and sought the specific one they had come to find; the chances of finding anything else she could use against her mother were remote, anyway. The collection of oversized books were laid flat against each other, and it took time to find the one with the symbol she had seen in the photo that the disembodied librarian had shown. Until she found it, she worried that leaving the humans alone might have made them fair game as far as the library was concerned... or maybe it really was just a defense against anything other than vampires. The notion did not ring true with her, but after Laura had accepted her as she was - more or less - the vampire suspected that she was due some bad luck.

Finding the leatherbound book they were after, she eased it out from under a much heavier tome and tucked it under her arm as she walked briskly back to the others.

Carmilla still had difficulty believing how Laura had been so accepting after everything. Yes, she had saved the teenager from Will... and then turned around and bit the girl that fed her... after she had lured her into a trap... but when the vampire had chosen to flee Silas and abandon her, Laura had convinced her to stay... and their relationship returned to the love/hate dynamic it had been beforehand.

Complicated was an understatement, but by now, Carmilla _had_ to admit that she wasn't trying to save Laura just to mess with her mother, anymore. Foiling the ginger giant's attack, even the look on her face as Laura crushed her romantic dreams, did not compare to the smile on her roommate's face brought about by the sarcastic tirade she had levelled on the mad scientist.

The look of relief on Laura's face when she came back into view was better.

Carmilla held up their prize as she approached. "Time to book with the book."

"Wait!" LaFontaine cried, "What about J.P.?"

"What _about_ him?"

"Well, he's still trapped in the system, down here..."

"And what do you expect to do about it?"

LaFontaine's mouth opened and closed a couple of times before her eyes widened and she started searching her pockets, provoking an increasingly familiar sigh of impatience from the vampire. The redhead finally found a flash drive from a back pocket (as sensible a place to keep it as an emergency syringe) and plugged it into the USB port of the nearest computer tower in the network. "J.P., can you transfer yourself onto that?"

 _After all this time, I am certainly willing to try,_ he replied, and his image disappeared from the corner of the screen for an increasingly tense moment. Finally, he reappeared. _I believe I have been successful._

"Then we'll see you soon," LaFontaine said before pulling the flash drive and grabbing the baseball bat.

"Time to go?" Laura asked.

Carmilla nodded. "Time to go."

The trio rushed back down the corridor.

* * *

Vale did not understand, could not understand. Either a thing was in the Abyss or out of it, there was no inbetween. And yet, since consuming Decius... he could hear the whispers.

The Arms had dissipated with the act, but the Shroud had changed; it was now a tornado of darkness, carrying the books within it, preventing them from reaching the center. The Lasombra crouched there, concentrating on the constant movement of the Shroud, trying to find the focus he needed to reason things out, but the whispers were too distracting. The words were ancient and important, he could feel that much, but it had nothing to do with understanding them and it was becoming... inconvenient.

"What the..."

The Lasombra turned, and there was Carmilla. And Laura, and LaFontaine.

And under current circumstances, the only way to provoke a potentially fatal accident was to terrify the fuck out of them.

The shadowy vortex began to spin faster as it moved toward them, tentacles of darkness burst from the spinning mass, twirling like the stick ribbons of gymnasts but in reverse, reaching for the girls like some Lovecraftian monster. Laura screamed and fled with LaFontaine half a step behind her. Carmilla backed away slowly until the sound of the doors opening indicated the increasing distance between her and Laura, and she turned to give chase.

Vale increased his pace as they moved beyond his sight, but during the walk over to the doors, he noticed the change in the whispers and paused. The spinning Shroud slowed, and the whispers returned to 'normal'.

Most Obtenebration effects involved drawing on an existing source, but the Shroud was not among them. A Lasombra does not conjure darkness out of thin air, as one seems to do when invoking a Shroud, which meant...

The swirling shadow vanished with a thought, sending the books tumbling in all directions, and silencing the whispers. Vale plus Decius plus Abyssal cloud. Removing the cloud from the equation was all he needed, and he would have picked up on that almost immediately if he had been of his own mind.

Stepping up to the doors and peeking through the small windows set into them, he detected no movement, with or without his Night Sight. He slipped outside before the books could regroup. He needed to find a dark place where he could meditate without supernatural assistance, and to spend the day in his own body instead of Tenebrous Form.

Sticking to the (natural) shadows, Vale snuck off in the direction of the nearest building in sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behind, behind, far behind.  
> No one's fault but mine.  
> Not like I don't have the time.


	7. Settling In

Vale woke lying on his back to the sight of floorboards.

All the older buildings in Silas University had secret passages. He had chosen to make the Robespierre his haven. It was a safe distance from the Alchemy Club, and the river that ran through the campus passed close to both. It would provide a safe route to and from the suspected Tremere chantry... or a method of escape, if necessary. It might also have had something to do with the Lasombra antediluvian's predilection for the sea, that was passed on to its childer by varying degrees. Running freshwater was enough for Vale, but there were a number of his clan spending their unlives as literal pirates; the murdering sort, not the Disney myth.

Another benefit was that, in a building meant for education rather than habitation, it was a lot easier to charge his phone without being noticed. Sitting with his back to the wall while the device was plugged in, Vale discovered that he had a lot to catch up on. Laura had released at least half a dozen videos new videos. The Nosferatu had also sent messages, including several scathing remarks about twitter and photoshop, but also the link required to access the videos directly from the Silas ethernet.

Siezures instead of hunger-induced frenzy. Sock puppets. Carmilla punching Will, feeding on Laura, threatening to tear out Danny's spine...

Giant mushrooms?

Nothing yet on the aftermath of their library visit last night.

A slew of curious contradictions gave the Lasombra plenty to think about, but the strangest piece of information came from the Nosferatu. More attempts had been made to upload Laura's videos to youtube, and the Camarilla response was to post the videos themselves, in the guise of entertainment sponsored by a Kindred-controlled company. The implications of a Cainite in control of a company that made products for menstruating women to bleed on were disturbing.

Assuming it would recharge faster if he stopped using it, Vale turned the phone off and considered the possibilities. Clan Tremere was originally House Tremere of the Order of Hermes, until they stole the gift of Caine from the only antediluvian who might not have deserved such a fate. Modifying their hermetic magic to accomodate the nature of Cainite disciplines is what made Thaumaturgy so dangerous and interesting. Vienna was home for the majority of the eldest, former members of the old order, the true Usurpers. Alchemy would be right up their alley, and the mountains of Styria shielded Silas from Western Europe. It was entirely possible that the warlocks had something secret going on in Silas since the dark ages, and the head of the chantry was probably among their eldest.

If he were still a diablerist, Vale would drool at the opportunity to sink his fangs into such a Kindred... but he had already 'stolen' fire from the Tremere, and while they no longer had access to his _vitae_ , he remained a target. He was here to investigate, not confront, and the only reason he had to believe that his use of Obtenebration was not being tracked by anyone on campus was that he had yet to evade anyone.

The Lasombra was still uncertain if Decius would have been trackable. He fed it his _vitae_ every night to maintain its presence in the physical world, so it was possible, if not probable. He would no longer have to feed so frequently with his former minion devoured, but now he had no way to contact Pisha. He certainly was not going to try and replace Decius after the bizarre behaviour he had witnessed in the Abyss last night. That had been troubling. Tremere _antitribu_ had spoken of a thaumaturgical path intended to mimic Obtenebration, but there had never been any evidence that it involved the Abyss or its denizens until now. Or it could be something else that was going on, entirely unrelated for all he knew. Pisha was a necromancer, and she had spoken of a maelstrom in the underworld during all the upset of 1999. Could something similiar occur in the Abyss? And if so, what could be the cause?

Vale would investigate the entire university, not just Carmilla, the Dean or the Alchemy Club. A good start would be a more thorough exploration in Tenebrous Form, starting with what the students were referring to as the 'north quad' and working his way southward. Increased mobility aside, if there were local Tremere keeping a lookout for 'blood magic' on campus, it would be a lot easier to identify and avoid his hunters if they assumed they were looking for a body.

* * *

Watching Laura type, Carmilla decided that things with her roommate had gotten decidedly... friendly. They had spent much of the afternoon translating in earnest, her roommate transcribing as she read aloud from the book. She was frustratingly rusty with Sumerian after all this time, which meant her Babylonian and Assyrian were probably even worse. After identifying that statue of Ishtar in the Dean's residence, she had believed that learning the associated ancient languages might help her dig up any clues about her mother and what she was doing. She had told her mother the same story she had told Laura about wanting to read the original form of Gilgamesh. In that regard, Silas University had been good for something, as the only languages they taught were long dead; Middle English of the sixteenth century was the earliest, and that was only because of the Chaucer module in Literature. Of course, nothing had come of it until now. If not for Laura and LaFontaine, she would never have known where to look.

Laura always used three question marks in her transcript whenever Carmilla came across a symbol she did not recognise. There was absolutely no reason whatsoever to find that cute. It made as much sense as translating a book that did not have the information they were seeking, just a whole lot of other ancient evil godlike nasties that inspired all the horrors people have been writing about ever since.

The teenager leaned back after finishing the latest paragraph, declaring, "Well, I'm famished."

Carmilla raised an eyebrow. "Really? You could eat after the dozen virgins that are skinned alive and-"

"Once was enough, thankyou!" Laura cut her off before she could repeat the _really_ nasty part. "But yeah, I should probably put something healthier than cookies and soda in my stomach at least once every twenty-four hours."

"Sounds sensible, I guess."

Laura's eyes narrowed as she observed the sly grin on the vampire's face. "And you're thinking that means more chocolate for you."

"The thought crossed my mind," Carmilla admitted as nonchalantly as she could.

The teenager bent over to slip her shoes on, and hide the smile she couldn't keep off her face. It was not until she stood that the idea came to her, and it fell out of her mouth without thinking. "Would you like to come with me?"

The vampire raised an eyebrow at the rushed invitation. "I think you'll be safe enough, cupcake... as long as you stay away from the soup."

"I know, but... I mean, you _can_ eat more than chocolate, right?"

"Only for the flavour." Carmilla closed the book and held it loosely to her chest as she lay back in her bed. "I've been up all day, which isn't as easy as you might think. I'll take this opportunity for a nap while you go masticate."

"You'll be here when I get back?" Laura asked.

"No promises," Carmilla said, but the smile on her lips was good enough for the teenager before she grabbed her wallet and made her exit as quietly as possible.

* * *

Vale's exploration of the campus was slowed by his observations of the students. More than once, he found himself pausing as he overheard a snippet of conversation about secret societies or manifestations or glowing runes. The study of Abyssal occultism had a purposeful lack of anything glowing, and it was the only subject the Lasombra had ever been interested in. Silas may be the only university in the world so steeped in occultism, but none of it was familiar to such a specialised researcher. The longer he paid attention to the students, however, the more he noticed a pattern.

The Zeta Omega Mu fraternity was not European in the slightest, but literally comprised of American style "bros" despite the multiculturalism of its members. Laura had stated in her videos that the missing girls entered a 'party animal' stage, and Vale was beginning to wonder if something similiar was going on with the Zetas. Who were they sacrificing goats to? And then there was the Summer Society, a group of phyiscally active feminists with a curious tendency to violence levelled against all perceived enemies. The Cainite suspected something of Greek origin behind that. He had yet to identify any members of the Alchemy Club, and suspected they kept to themselves more than most. The fact that they seemed to wield social status on campus comparable to the fraternity and society certainly suggested there was more to them, but if they followed the same pattern, they were also mere mortals. A Tremere overseer could be their figurehead... perhaps the club had been set up as a method of recruitment? A university advertising its occult education to attract interested parties would bring potential childer to the Tremere.

All still conjecture of course. Pisha might not set foot so close to Vienna, but the Gangrel scholar Beckett might find Silas interesting enough to visit. There was also a Tzimisce elder with similiar interests, making it the only one of its clan that Vale would not seek to destroy on sight. However, before the Tremere had usurped the Salubri, they had experimented on both Gangrel and Tzimisce, to the ire of both clans. Beckett might not hold a grudge, but Vykos... if Silas _was_ an interest of the Tremere, Vykos might do more harm than good, and the kine would be caught in the crossfire. They would probably suffer even if there were no Tremere here... a sensible Tzimisce was still a Tzimisce, after all. The Nosferatu may be cursed to wear their horrible visages, but the Tzimisce were the most monstrous of all the clans.

When it came down to it, they all had their own thing to focus on. Vale had the Abyss, Pisha the Underworld; Beckett sought quantifiable truths of vampirism while Vykos was a Noddist, looking to the closest thing Cainites had to a Bible for those same truths.

Laura's voice.

She was walking from the cafeteria to the dormitories with LaFontaine, updating the redhead on their progress in translating the Sumerian book. That was certainly something the Lasombra was curious about, and this would be the first opportunity to learn something ahead of the videos Laura posted. Vale threaded his tenebrous self through the shadows perpendicular to the path they were taking, slipping into the subflooring of the more modern building and following the girl's footsteps to the room she shared with Carmilla. Knowing that the camera and computer Laura used to make her videos were against the wall opposite the door, the Lasombra threaded himself through the power supply fixture that both devices were plugged into, moving up the wall and settling across the underside of the desk.

Vale remained there, listening as the dialogue between Laura and Carmilla bounced back and forth between translation and banter. The former was disturbing; the latter could only be disturbing to a Cainite that had abandoned his own humanity years ago. Sarcasm seemed to transcend such things, but the emotions flying between the two... the Lasombra had not paid much attention to such things beyond how Carmilla could take advantage of Laura's naivety. The possibility that the vampire genuinely cared for the kine had not occurred to him until now.

Carmilla was technically older than he was, but Cainites far older than either of them had been able to hold onto their humanity. Canis Nobile had been a Roman soldier, significant enough in rank to warrant a gladius fashioned specifically for him; Cainites of his era had called it the Via Humanitas, and he had maintained his despite the depradations of his very nature for two thousand years. Vale had abandoned his own humanity because he had allowed himself to grow too close to the Beast, and required a new system of morality to avoid losing himself to it completely. The Path of the Abyss had been a natural fit, even though he had originally spurned the interest of the Children of the Abyss, as they called themselves. When the subculture of the Lasombra had first approached him, he had already recognised the limitations of his generation; since diablerizing an elder, the possibilities they had offered showed much more promise.

Laura eventually suggested a good night's sleep to the supposedly nocurnal roommate. Carmilla kept the lights on her side of the room on so that she could continue frowning at the contents of the book they had purloined from the library. The kine had turned her back to Carmilla for the sake of trying to fall asleep despite the light, but before Vale had decided to slip back outside and continue his exploration of the campus, he was interrupted.

"Carmilla?" Laura spoke softly.

"Mm-hm?"

"Are you... would you be willing to... tell me about Ell?"

A long silence followed, and the teenager thought it was the only answer she was going to get until Carmilla finally responded. "She lived in a schloss near my family's land... the first time I saw her was in a dream, when she was little." She did not mention how she had also dreamed of feeding on the girl.

Laura rolled over to face her roommate's bed, but Carmilla was lying on her back, the open book lying across her stomach as she stared at the ceiling... or perhaps, not seeing it at all. "Does that sort of thing happen a lot? With vampires, I mean."

"No. But I think... if that's how she appears in the dreams of the girls that are taken, maybe I marked her somehow, even then." A sigh. "I didn't meet her face-to-face until... you know... but I recognised her right away... and she recognised me, too. I guess I thought..." _Soulmates._ "I thought it was a sign, that something could change. _Would_ change. Not how I hoped, as it turned out."

The heartbreak in the vampire's voice threatened to break Laura's heart as well. "Do you think it would have made a difference, if you had told her before your mother did?"

"It was... a different time," Carmilla answered uncertainly. "Science had become the new faith, but people still turned to the supernatural when science didn't provide sufficient answers. It's easier to deny the existence of vampires these days, even when you run out of scientific explanations."

"Yeah, well, any doubts I might have had ended when you bit me," Laura said, than hurriedly added, "Not that I can blame you. I mean, I did tie you up for days, and you had a good reason-"

"Okay, stop," the vampire interrupted, "We've been over that, so stop making excuses for me. It's not like I'm ever going to apologise, anyway. You may not like it, but I've been doing what I have to do... the rest of the time, I do what I can."

"I get that, but... you're not alone, anymore. Hopefully, together, we can put an end to this, once and for all."

Carmilla seemed to consider this, and with a muttered, "Maybe," she picked the book back up to continue reading.

When silence fell once more, the Lasombra exited the way he had come. Students turning in for the night meant it would be easier to explore the rest of the campus before returning to the dormitories to do the same, though the latter would also be for the sake of feeding. The Sabbat mocked the Camarilla and made a habit of breaking their Masquerade, especially as a war tactic; resources wasted on covering up the acts of vampires would be resources not used against the Sabbat. In the old days, if Vale did not kill by feeding, leaving his victims in a weak and disoriented state was never an issue. Subtlety was a game more often than a necessity. After New York changed hands, settling into a Camarilla-controlled city required a more moderate etiquette... and he had to admit, being able to wipe or alter the memory of his visit did broaden the possibilities when it came to feeding.

Not that he was kowtowing to the Camarilla, of course. Yes, the Masquerade was a good idea in the technological age, but the leaders of the sect liked to pretend that they were not part of the neverending Jyhad with which they had been cursed, or that Gehenna was only a myth. Vale was certain that the Inner Circle knew exactly what had happened to the Ravnos and their founder. The Sabbat had been founded in opposition to the Camarilla, to hunt down and destroy the antediluvians that threatened all their progeny. Gehenna had come early for the Ravnos clan, but the Camarilla could not admit that the opposing sect had been right all along. Political bullshit. The Jyhad, having the Kindred dance from their puppet strings until Gehenna comes.

At the height of the Anarch revolt, the Lasomba destroyed their founder while it slept, followed by the Tzimisce. They founded the Sabbat, but in five hundred years, they had accomplished nothing more than to oppose the Camarilla. The Jyhad, again. Several other antediluvians had been destroyed and since, but the Sabbat never added to their original tally of two. Two, out of thirteen. Or less. Or maybe more. After several thousand years, who could be certain?

Vale was not Sabbat, but he believed in its original purpose. He would never call himself Camarilla, never call himself Kindred. He was Cainite, because he acknowledged where he came from, and where all his kind were going. Only the Black Hand was still doing anything to stop it, and he would do what he could toward that purpose.

He needed to find a way to renew contact with Pisha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, probably not going to make that 50k again. I can only write a few paragraphs at a time before I want to do something else. I miss how the words used to flow...
> 
> My first attempt, I got to 28272, a wacky number I shall always remember. I've hit 50k a couple of times but not with original stories: one was my Lasombra going through the Bloodlines game, another was a Jason Bourne version of Mass Effect 2, an amnesiac Shepard. I don't count those. Or this one, but I wanted to try it, and NaNoWriMo seems to be the only thing that motivates me to write, these years. I consider 30k to be my personal best.
> 
> Note to self: Corvae is headquartered in Jahra, Kuwait.


	8. A Trap Deployed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alfer: I'm sticking to Carmilla's plot indefinitely.

_I have restricted myself to observation for the most part, as I familiarise myself with Silas University. I began solely in Tenebrous Form, allowing for a thorough exploration of the campus; after going undetected for several nights and given the prevalence of super-, preter- or extra- natural goings-on in this place, I find that Shadowplay is sufficient for my purposes in most situations._

_I am not convinced that Carmilla is descended from Caine. I have yet to encounter her apparent sire, but while I believe that I have identified the Dean's residence, my curiosity is tempered with caution. The Alchemy Club may yet prove to be a chantry, but I do not take Carmilla's use of the word 'antediluvian' lightly, especially in these Final Nights._

_I still suspect Tremere involvement, given the university's proximity to Vienna. Their experiments in the dark ages resulted in constructed beings great and small, similiar to those of the foul Tzimisce. The gargoyle 'bloodline' is a direct result of their work. What if their experiments never stopped? Silas may be some sort of thinblood research site, or a testing ground for a new bloodline._

_Beckett has an enduring curiousity regarding thinbloods, perhaps he would be interested in this matter. From what I have learned from him, and observed for myself, the weakest generations are less troubled by the curse of Caine. They are far less troubled by the Beast, therefore less likely to frenzy due to starvation, or suffer rotschreck as a result of sunlight. Their bodies sometimes mimic the habits of the living, and I have detected a heartbeat from Carmilla on several occasions, usually after she feeds. Perhaps the Dean is a Lasombra working with the Tremere, and they have been running experiments involving the intentional dilution of Cainite_ vitae _in order to better undestand the nature of the weakest generations._

_Of course, I must once again voice my protest against the role you label 'Scourge', as I do whenever the subject of thinbloods come up. Weak or not, they remain childer of Caine... and we both know what happens when too many Final Deaths occur in too short a time, do we not?_

_Another possibility involves the Kuei-jin (or Cathayans, as you probably refer to them).Their established presence on the west coast of America in recent years may have afforded the Tremere a new kind of test subject; I believe a member of the university's faculty may be one of them, or at least some sort of Tremere facsimile. The Asian vampires are not like us. They have no_ vitae _, their blood is as inert as that of any corpse. There are no sires or childer, and because there are no bloodlines or generations involved, there are no preferences or limits to their disciplines. Instead of an instinctual raging Beast, they must contend with the reasoning, cunning devil of their darker nature. They feed on energy, though they do usually get it by consuming blood - perhaps we do too, does the Bible not say that the blood carries the soul? - but they can_ _all consume mortal food and drink, compared to the very few of us._

_Both theories have their merits and flaws, but one must proceed from what one knows. I shall begin probing the Alchemy Club in the near future, and then we shall see what trainspires._

* * *

 Vale poked the send button before returning to the contacts menu on his phone and staring at the only other number on the list. More than once, he had invoked Shadowplay and subtly presented himself to a lone student crossing the campus in the middle of the night, taking no action... and they have either ignored or avoided him instead of the customary panicked fleeing. The Lasombra clan had been behind the 'shadow men' myth for millennia; for the kine to be so inured to such a manifestation may suggest that his clan is involved after all. Still, it was best to leave that particular experiment out of his report; countless Camarilla stooges would construe it as breaking the Masquerade and be grateful for such a blatent excuse to clamour for his destruction.

The Nosferatu probably read the messages he sent to the Ventrue lickspittle that was 'in charge' of this whole affair. The question was, did the Sewer Rat share his messages with the Ventrue. Pisha had never spoken against modern forms of communication, but did she know how to operate an ordinary phone, let alone a smart one? He was not even sure where she was, these nights... on the other hand, if anyone could find her, it was the Nosferatu. She did want to be kept in the loop regarding Silas, and he suspected her insight would prove beneficial.

Long before the Usurpers, Indian death mages had created the Nagaraja bloodline. If Pisha knew their motives, she had never shared them with the Lasombra, but he suspected necromancy was involved. The deed had been done by experimenting on Cainite _vitae_ , not the Cainites themselves as the House of Tremere had done. The flesh of their gargoyles had come from Gangrel and Tzimisce; rumour had it that the Nosferatu had also been victims of the warlocks, but they were typically harder to track down so who knew if that was true. The Tzimisce were fleshcrafters themselves, and as far as Vale was concerned, they deserved everything they got. The Gangrel, however... he considered them worthy of respect. Granted, they had been antisocial even before they gave the Camarilla the finger, but in a race of predators, they were among the most noble. Darquinian had been an ally until the elder took exception to his diablerie of the Sabbat archbishop, but they had parted on fairly peaceful terms. Alaana was far younger and quite a bit crazier, and had not given a damn about the black veins in his aura when Vale had finally returned to America. She was not a typical Gangrel (the blue hair was the biggest clue), and a friendly kind of violence typically ensued whenever one was sufficently annoyed by the other; but everything he knew about lockpicking, he had learned from her.

The destruction of the only virtuous clan founder - the only grandchilde that Caine did not curse - and the subsequent blood hunt of all its childer, were crimes for which the Tremere should pay. Such things were concepts to Vale, but his experience with the Gangrel was that there was an honesty in their ways that put them right up there with the Salubri, before the Tremere had labelled them infernalists. What an irony, then, that such dark thaumaturges were typically Tremere _antitribu_.

Of course, the Nagaraja were often accused of the same. Like with the Salubri, Vale knew better. If the Dean was as old as Carmilla claimed...

Resolved, Vale started tapping out a new message to the Sewer Rat.

* * *

_There are two people I wish to contact regarding Silas. One is the Gangrel Beckett, whose reputation I assume you are familiar with. The other is far more reclusive, but I last met her in New York. She calls herself Pisha. She is of Indian descent - Asian, not American - with long dark hair, bright eyes and tattoos on her face and arm. It is extremely unlikely that she would come so close to the stronghold of the Tremere, but she is a less specialised occultist than myself, and I suspect that her input will prove useful after the things I have experienced here._

_Speaking of which, the Dean's cult took LaFontaine. My sympathies, I know she is your favourite among the mortal menagerie. She returned on schedule with a brain full of celebratory parasites. During the two days of her absence, Carmilla and Laura must have been keeping Perry on sleeping pills or some such, since she did nothing but sleep the whole time I was there last night. And they waltzed, briefly. The affection seems to be genuine, and flowing in both directions. Congratulations, you were proven correct on the subject of useless social trivia._

_During Laura's video editing efforts tonight, I learned that Perry suggested she delay release of the videos since the cult is probably watching them; I suspect I shall have to continue keeping you apprised on current developments... which, I must point out, is_ not _why I am here. On that note, blood was spilled on the Sumerian book, revealing a fresh passage on the big bad that the Dean and her cult serve. I have no idea if Carmilla pronounced it correctly, let alone how it is spelled, so: La-fill-form-is. The light that devours consumes minds, and its victims remain conscious. The ritual requiring five virgins will occur on Friday night, so feel free to hurry when it comes to finding Beckett and Pisha. I am an_ Abyssal _occultist; a hungry_ light _is not within my purview._

* * *

Laura was still somewhat disconcerted by the existence of J.P. Armitage... or at least, the fact that he existed on a thumb drive. She had read Neuromancer (behind her father's back, he never would have allowed it, what with the drugs and sex and all), but it was still hard to believe that a previously human consciousness could survive in its entirety on something so small that it was really easy to lose. Even if he was not just an echo of his former self, he had been trapped in the library catalogue since long before it had been digitized. People may have been more polite back then, but she feared that his gentlemanly demeanour was masking some form of insanity. LaFontaine had said something about a vocal interface; Laura hoped it wouldn't send shivers up her spine like the computer from Wargames.

Still, J.P. had been the one to suggest researching mystical weapons that might prove effective against the Light That Devours, and he was capable of hacking the restricted files of the campus' historical records via the ethernet, so no more nocturnal forays into the tempremental library! The teenager was willing to give the potential crazy (that she could unplug at a moment's notice) the benefit of the doubt, compared to daring a third visit to a place that was definitely full of crazy.

Carmilla's face was still buried in the Sumerian book, only peeking out whenever she referred to one of the other books laying on her bed that helped her with the symbols she could not read. She was supposedly researching mystical weapons as well, but Laura knew that not being able to completely translate the entry on the Big Bad had been getting on the vampire's nerves. Combined with the fact that she had not slept since last night, and had been swigging blood like grape soda to make up for it... Laura suspected that her true motivation was freeing Ell from the Light.

She couldn't compete with a literal ghost from Carmilla's past. Yes, the vampire had shown _that_ kind of interest in her more than once, but the teenager had borne witness to the study buddy parade. Flirting was probably her normal mode of behaviour with girls she didn't think were complete imbiciles, and Laura still had a lingering doubt that she was numbered among them. Crushing on a vampire still seemed like the worst idea ever, but after that momentary waltz, could anyone blame her? It was still mortifying to recall checking out Carmilla's ass in those tight jeans, until she had turned around unexpectedly, forcing Laura to fake a yawn, which led to the vampire offering her bed to the frail mortal... she glanced up at the camera to make sure it wasn't recording the blush rising across her cheeks at the memory. She had to stop letting these doubts get to her. Carmilla had tried to save her weeks ago with that batwing bracelet. She still was not sure exactly what she had said or done to engender to the vampire, and obviously their had been some ups and down in their relationship since then, but...

Laura sighed. Since she couldn't be any help on the mystical weapon front, she should be focusing on actual schoolwork; that had been the plan she came up with during her morning ablutions. Instead, she had sat at the desk all morning, staring at the paperwork and pining for the other girl in the room...

"What's the matter, cupcake?"

...Who had been distracted from her own studies by a mere sigh. "My brain is fried," Laura hedged, leaning back in her chair.

"Isn't it about time for you to go eat something?"

The clock confirmed it. "Yeah... are you coming this time?" the teenager asked as she rose. Carmilla actually seemed to ponder the question this time, so Laura added, "A break from the books would probably do you some good. And it might do you some good to have something solid after all the blood you've been drinking lately. You've obviously got chocolate cupcakes on the brain right now..."

Carmilla bit back a less offensive iteration of, 'It doesn't work like that', then avoided voicing the suggestion that Laura was the only cupcake she was thinking of eating these days. She grinned at the human instead. "You buying?"

"Don't I always? At least this way I'm actually giving you chocolate instead of you stealing it."

"That _is_ half the fun," the vampire admitted as she uncrossed her legs and levered herself off the bed. As she closed the Sumerian book and shoved it under her mattress, she added, "But you do make it easy, leaving it lying around like you always do."

"Then this should be a nice change of pace," Laura reasoned, "And maybe I'll start thinking of hiding places when we get back."

"Good luck with that," Carmilla drawled as she followed Laura out of the room.

About fifteen minutes later, the door handle jiggled for a moment before turning enough for the door to creak open. Something, a cross between a cat and a shadow, padded silently into the room and took in its surroundings before heading to the desk. Hopping onto it via the chair, it deposited the silver necklace over the bloodstained glass, stared at the camera hooked up to the computer until it was content that the device was not currently in operation, and returned the way it had come, tugging the door closed behind it as it left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's that. A dismal showing compared to previous NaNoWriMo attempts under similiar circumstances, but at least I'm writing again; that said, I'd still give the time to video editing instead. I have to finish episode two of The Wolf Among Us - Sin City Style, I've got four music video ideas (and maybe a review?) for Life Is Strange, and I've also started playing The Old Republic again to while away the winter.
> 
> I want to keep progressing with this until I catch up with the Carmilla season two finale, but judging by how long it's been since I posted anything on ffnet, I can't make any promises. For instance, it took me a week to finish and post the chapter...

**Author's Note:**

> Vale is my original character when I was roleplaying Vampire: the Masquerade. As a photographer obsessed with the contrast of light and shadow, a Lasombra was a natural fit.
> 
> Canis Nobile (or Magnus) is an original character of Christopher Wright, author of "Pay Me, Bug!" and the ongoing prose comic "Curveball", both of which can be found at eviscerati.org.
> 
> Pisha is a character from Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines. In my version of the story, she is not only a Nagaraja scholar and occultist, but a member of the Black Hand... which is NOT secretely working for the antediluvians, as Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand implies.
> 
> While on the subject of how the Sanctum rolled: the Lasombra and Tzimisce antediluvians are definitely Finally Dead, Vicissitude is not a virus, the technocracy is not a thing because sci-fi undercuts what is supposed to be horror, and "spirit nukes" are not what delivered the deathblow to the Ravnos antediluvian.


End file.
